“We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing.”

— Jane Austen

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Jane Austen 477

English novelist 1775–1817

Steve Perry book The Man Who Never Missed

Source: The Man Who Never Missed (1985), Chapter 10 (p. 87)

“What we have loved, others will love, and we will teach them how; instruct them how the mind of man becomes a thousand times more beautiful than the earth on which he dwells…”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Source: Lyrical Ballads

“All stories teach, whether the storyteller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more effectively than moral precepts and instructions.”

Philip Pullman (1946) English author

“For I can assure you that we love our country, not for what it was, though it has always been great — not for what it is, though of this we are deeply proud — but for what it someday can, and, through the efforts of us all, someday will be.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

"Address at a Luncheon Meeting of the National Industrial Conference Board (33)", (13 February 1961) http://www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/JFK-Quotations.aspx
1961

“We can love what we are, without hating what — and who — we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.”

Kofi Annan (1938–2018) 7th Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel lecture (2001)
Context: In every great faith and tradition one can find the values of tolerance and mutual understanding. The Qur’a, for example, tells us that "We created you from a single pair of male and female and made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other." Confucius urged his followers: "when the good way prevails in the state, speak boldly and act boldly. When the state has lost the way, act boldly and speak softly." In the Jewish tradition, the injunction to "love thy neighbour as thyself," is considered to be the very essence of the Torah.
This thought is reflected in the Christian Gospel, which also teaches us to love our enemies and pray for those who wish to persecute us. Hindus are taught that "truth is one, the sages give it various names." And in the Buddhist tradition, individuals are urged to act with compassion in every facet of life.
Each of us has the right to take pride in our particular faith or heritage. But the notion that what is ours is necessarily in conflict with what is theirs is both false and dangerous. It has resulted in endless enmity and conflict, leading men to commit the greatest of crimes in the name of a higher power.
It need not be so. People of different religions and cultures live side by side in almost every part of the world, and most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are, without hating what — and who — we are not. We can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.