"Humanism"
The Doubter's Companion (1994)
“Most non-readers are nothing but an agglomeration of third-hand opinion and blindly received wisdom.”
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Tom Bissell 4
American journalist 1974Related quotes
Margaret Fuller
(1810–1850) American feminist, poet, author, and activist
"Self-Poise" p. 130.
Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 (1844)
Context: The better part of wisdom is a sublime prudence, a pure and patient truth that will receive nothing it is not sure it can permanently lay to heart. Of our study there should be in proportion two-thirds of rejection to one of acceptance. And, amid the manifold infatuations and illusions of this world of emotion, a being capable of clear intelligence can do no better service than to hold himself upright, avoid nonsense, and do what chores lie in his way, acknowledging every moment that primal truth, which no fact exhibits, nor, if pressed by too warm a hope, will even indicate. I think, indeed, it is part of our lesson to give a formal consent to what is farcical, and to pick up our living and our virtue amid what is so ridiculous, hardly deigning a smile, and certainly not vexed. The work is done through all, if not by every one.
Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11
Bertrand Russell
(1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
“Receiving education nurtures human wisdom.”
Husayn ibn Ali
(626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib
Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 128
Regarding Wisdom
Randall Jarrell
(1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist
“To the Laodiceans”, p. 21
No Other Book: Selected Essays (1999)
Variant: [Robert] Frost says in a piece of homely doggerel that he has hoped wisdom could be not only Attic but Laconic, Boeotian even—“at least not systematic”; but how systematically Frostian the worst of his later poems are! His good poems are the best refutation of, the most damning comment on, his bad: his Complete Poems have the air of being able to educate any faithful reader into tearing out a third of the pages, reading a third, and practically wearing out the rest.
Source: It's Not About the Bike: My Journey Back to Life (2000), p. 267
Context: Anything is possible. You can be told you have a 90-percent chance or a 50-percent chance or a 1-percent chance, but you have to believe, and you have to fight. By fight I mean arm yourself with all the available information, get second opinions, third opinions, and fourth opinions. Understand what has invaded your body, and what the possible cures are. It's another fact of cancer that the more informed and empowered patient has a better chance of long-term survival. What if I had lost? What if I relapsed and the cancer came back? I still believe I would have gained something in the struggle, because in what time I had left I would have been a more complete, compassionate, and intelligent man, and therefore more alive.
“Whoever said, he/she is a proud non-reader of books is living in oblivion.”
Gaurav Sharma (author)
(1992) Author and novelist
World Book Day (2018)
Martin Luther King, Jr.
(1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Source: 1960s, Strength to Love (1963), Ch. 2 : Transformed nonconformist
Context: In his essay "Self-Reliance" Emerson wrote, "Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist." The Apostle Paul reminds us that whoso would be a Christian must also be a a nonconformist. Any Christian who blindly accepts the opinions of the majority and in fear and timidity follows a path of expediency and social approval is a mental and spiritual slave.