We prize books, and they prize them most who are themselves wise.
Interpretation
Books are valued by those who possess wisdom, and the wisest individuals cherish them the most.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson highlights the special relationship between wisdom and the appreciation of books. It suggests that the pursuit of knowledge and understanding through reading is both a hallmark of wisdom and a means to cultivate it. Those who are wise recognize the value of books not just as sources of information, but as tools for personal growth and enlightenment.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of education, one might quote Emerson to emphasize how wise individuals value learning.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
To maximise global social welfare, policymakers should strongly encourage the diffusion of knowledge from developed to developing countries.
All I know for certain is that reading is of the most intense importance to me; if I were not able to read, to revisit old favorites and experiment with names new to me, I would be starved - probably too starved to go on writing myself.
Pastors need to know what's going on in the world and what has been going on for 4,000 years. We need a way to read Scripture which is imaginative, interpretive.
Without libraries what have we? We have no past and no future.
If the education and studies of children were suited to their inclinations and capacities, many would be made useful members of society that otherwise would make no figure in it.
You can teach students how to work; you can teach them technique - how to use reason; you can even give them a sense of proportions - of order. You can teach them general principles.
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