“The idea - the core idea of humanism - is that the act of reading about great deeds will lead you to imitate them,..”

—  Stanley Fish

Source: How To Write A Sentence And How To Read One (2011), Chapter 10, Sentences That Are About Themselves (Aren't They All?), p. 137

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The idea - the core idea of humanism - is that the act of reading about great deeds will lead you to imitate them,.." by Stanley Fish?
Stanley Fish photo
Stanley Fish 18
American academic 1938

Related quotes

Victor Hugo photo

“You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea.”

Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist

Context: You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do not bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.

Villemain (1845)

Albert Einstein photo

“The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

"Einstein's Reply to Criticisms" (1949), The World As I See It (1949)
Context: I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it.
Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie?

Napoleon I of France photo

“Lead the ideas of your time and they will accompany and support you; fall behind them and they drag you along with them; oppose them and they will overwhelm you.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon photo

“No stops are ever inserted in Acts of Parliament, or in deeds; but the Courts of law, in construing them, must read them with such stops as will give effect to the whole.”

Lloyd Kenyon, 1st Baron Kenyon (1732–1802) British Baron

Doe d. Willis and others v. Martin and others (1790), 4 T. R. 65.

Béla H. Bánáthy photo

“The vision and the core values inspire the creation of the image, but the core ideas are the "stuff" of which the image is made. The core ideas that designers generated in the course of using the framework will have to be arranged in sets that enhance the creation of the image and the design of the system.”

Béla H. Bánáthy (1919–2003) Hungarian linguist and systems scientist

Source: Systems Design of Education (1991), p. 126

Matt Haig photo

“There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself.”

Matt Haig book Reasons to Stay Alive

Variant: There is this idea that you either read to escape or you read to find yourself. I don't really see the difference.
Source: Reasons to Stay Alive

Rex Stout photo

“A person who does not read cannot think. He may have good mental processes, but he has nothing to think about. You can feel for people or natural phenomena and react to them, but they are not ideas. You cannot think about them.”

Rex Stout (1886–1975) American writer

Life, "Author Rex Stout vs. the F.B.I."

Ray Bradbury photo

“That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you.”

Ray Bradbury book Zen in the Art of Writing

Source: Zen in the Art of Writing

Francis Bacon photo

“There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine.”

Francis Bacon book Novum Organum

Aphorism 23
Novum Organum (1620), Book I
Context: There is a great difference between the Idols of the human mind and the Ideas of the divine. That is to say, between certain empty dogmas, and the true signatures and marks set upon the works of creation as they are found in nature.

Howard H. Aiken photo

“Do not worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you will to ram them down people´s throats.”

Howard H. Aiken (1900–1973) pioneer in computing, original conceptual designer behind IBM's Harvard Mark I computer

Related topics