You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.
Peggy NoonanRead
You can get so well educated in America that your thoughts become detached from common sense. You can get so complicated in your thinking that the obvious isn't real to you anymore.
Interpretation
Education can sometimes lead to a disconnect from practical, common sense.
In this quote, Peggy Noonan highlights a paradox of education, particularly in America, where individuals may acquire extensive knowledge yet lose sight of simplicity and practicality in their thinking. This detachment from common sense can lead to complexities in thought processes that obscure the obvious truths in everyday life.
In practice
In a seminar about the importance of practical knowledge in education.
You don't tell people who disagree with you they'd be better off somewhere else. And you don't reduce them to stereotypes; you address them as fully formed people worthy of respect. You try to persuade them.
If you join government, calmly make your contribution and move on. Don't go along to get along; do your best and when you have to - and you will - leave, and be something else.
Wit penetrates; humor envelops. Wit is a function of verbal intelligence; humor is imagination operating on good nature.
Naps are nature's way of reminding you that life is nice, like a beautiful swinging hammock strung between birth and infinity.
We must try again to be alive to what the people of our country really long for in our national life: forgiveness and grace, maturity and wisdom. ...Our political leaders will know our priorities only if we tell them, again and again, and if those priorities begin to show up in the polls.
When everyone in America knows you're in a dreadful position, admit you're in a dreadful position. Don't lie about it and make them roll their eyes, tell the truth and make them blink.
The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.
My mother helped me understand how not to show off what I knew, but how to use it so that others might benefit.
It's not good enough to give it tender, loving care, to supply it with breakfast foods, to buy it expensive educations. Those things don't mean anything unless this generation has a future. And we're not sure that it does.
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
We don't yet know, above all, what the world might be like if children were to grow up without being subjected to humiliation, if parents would respect them and take them seriously as people.
The librarian's mission should be, not like up to now, a mere handling of the book as an object, but rather a know how (mise au point) of the book as a vital function.
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