“No longer a mark of distinction or proof of achievement, a college education is these days a mere rite of passage, a capstone to adolescent party time.”

In Defense of Elitism

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 "No longer a mark of distinction or proof of achievement, a college education is these days a mere rite of passage, a ca…" by William A. Henry III?
William A. Henry III photo
William A. Henry III 8
American critic 1950–1994

Related quotes

Kabir photo

“Hindus and Moslems alike have achieved that End, where remains no mark of distinction.”

Kabir (1440–1518) Indian mystic poet

Songs of Kabîr (1915)

“These days adolescence stretches much further into adulthood than it used to. There's no longer any encouragement to be mature.”

J. G. Ballard (1930–2009) British writer

As quoted in Elevator Music (1994) by Joseph Lanza
Context: I began to become an adult when I was 24 and got married and had children. That matures you, but I wouldn't say I was fully an adult until I was in my forties. The trouble with the whole adult debate is that if you're asking 18-year-olds to go out and fight wars for you then you can't deny them adult rights even though in sorts of other ways they wouldn't qualify until they were about 25. These days adolescence stretches much further into adulthood than it used to. There's no longer any encouragement to be mature.

“Rituals of belonging (ordeals, oaths, rites of passage) are designed to disambiguate membership.”

Nick Land (1962) British philosopher

"Kinds of Killing" https://web.archive.org/web/20121111032625/http://www.thatsmags.com/shanghai/article/1008/kinds-of-killing (2011)

Jim Morrison photo
Marshall McLuhan photo

“It's misleading to suppose there's any basic difference between education & entertainment. This distinction merely relieves people of the responsibility of looking into the matter.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

(1957) from "Classroom Without Walls", Explorations Vol. 7, 1957; reprinted in Explorations in Communication ed. E. Carpenter & M. McLuhan, (Boston: Beacon, 1960); and again in McLuhan: Hot and Cool ed. G. E. Stearn (NY: Dial, 1967).
1960s, Hot & Cool (1967)

Glenn Gould photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Niklas Luhmann photo
William James photo

“Conversion is in its essence a normal adolescent phenomenon, incidental to the passage from the child's small universe to the wider intellectual and spiritual life of maturity.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Lecture IX, "Conversion"
1900s, The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902)

René Char photo

“A poet should leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Traces alone engender dreams.”

René Char (1907–1988) 20th-century French poet

Un poète doit laisser des traces de son passage, non des preuves. Seules les traces font rêver.
As quoted in The French-American Review (1976) by Texas Christian University, p. 132
Variant translation: A poet must leave traces of his passage, not proofs. Only traces bring about dreams.
As quoted in Popular Dissent, Human Agency, and Global Politics (2000) by Roland Bleiker, p. 50

Related topics