Is there any hope in education?
1920s, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Context: In truth, mankind cannot be saved from without, by schoolmasters or any other sort of masters: it can only be lamed and enslaved by them. It is said that if you wash a cat it will never again wash itself. This may or may not be true: what is certain is that if you teach a man anything he will never learn it; and if you cure him of a disease he will be unable to cure himself the next time it attacks him.
“Ministers become a sort of miniature kings in their turn. Though they have the greatest opportunity o observing the impotence and unmeaningness of the character, they envy it. It is their trade perpetually to extol the dignity and importance of the master they serve; and men cannot long anxiously endeavor to convince others of the truth of any proposition without becoming half convinced themselves.”
Book V, Ch. 5
Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
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William Godwin 36
English journalist, political philosopher and novelist 1756–1836Related quotes
Tolstoy: War and Peace (p. 192)
Classics Revisited (1968)
As quoted in Challenge of a Liberal Faith (1988), by George N. Marshall, Ch. 3 : A Contemporary Religion, p. 34
Context: I think that one of our most important tasks is to convince others that there's nothing to fear in difference; that difference, in fact, is one of the healthiest and most invigorating of human characteristics without which life would become meaningless. Here lies the power of the liberal way: not in making the whole world Unitarian, but in helping ourselves and others to see some of the possibilities inherent in viewpoints other than one's own; in encouraging the free interchange of ideas; in welcoming fresh approaches to the problems of life; in urging the fullest, most vigorous use of critical self-examination.
"Legacy of the Famine: Ukraine as a postgenocidal society" in The Day (February 18, 2003) http://www.day.kiev.ua/en/article/close/legacy-famine-ukraine-postgenocidal-society
“Never give any kind of drugs the opportunity to become master of your life.”
Original: (it) Non concedere mai a nessun tipo di droga l'opportunità di diventare padrona della tua vita.
Source: prevale.net