Language Education in a Knowledge Context (1980)
Context: Of writing that is filled with mechanical and grammatical error, as compared with writing that conforms to the rules of standard edited English. Surely, we do not want to say that there is a necessary correlation between mechanical and editorial accuracy and intellectual substance. There are many books that are mechanically faultless but which contain untrue, unclear, or even nonsensical ideas. Carefully edited writing tells us, not that the writer speaks truly, but that he or she grasps... the manner in which knowledge is usually expressed. The most devastating argument against a paper that is marred by grammatical and rhetorical error is that the writer does not understand the subject.
“Yes, books are dangerous. They should be dangerous - they contain ideas.”
“A book is simply the container of an idea—like a bottle; what is inside the book is what matters.”
Expletives Deleted: Selected Writings (1992).
“The telephone book is full of facts, but it doesn't contain a single idea.”
Source: Connie Robertson (1998). Book of Humorous Quotations. p. 2
as reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 29.
On the Vedas, in India, What can it teach us (1882) Lecture IV <!-- p. 118 -->
Speech, Saskatchewan Legislature, February 17, 1954.
“All the historical books which contain no lies are extremely tedious.”
Les livres d'histoire qui ne mentent pas sont tout fort maussades.
La Bûche [The Log] (December 24, 1849)
The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881)
Variant: History books that contain no lies are extremely dull.
Source: Books, Coningsby (1844), Lothair (1870), Ch. 29.
