Don't be afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.
Interpretation
Pursue practical skills and trades without fear of becoming an author.
In this quote, Charles Dickens encourages individuals to not shy away from learning practical trades and skills, suggesting that one does not have to be a writer or an author to find value and purpose in their work. It reflects the importance of honest labor and the myriad of opportunities that exist outside of the literary world, promoting the idea that all forms of work have merit and can lead to fulfillment.
In practice
In a classroom setting, a teacher might use this quote to inspire students to appreciate vocational skills.
I recollected one story there was in the village, how that on a certain night in the year (it might be that very night for anything I knew), all the dead people came out of the ground and sat at the heads of their own graves till morning.
A silent look of affection and regard when all other eyes are turned coldly away-the consciousness that we possess the sympathy and affection of one being when all others have deserted us-is a hold, a stay, a comfort, in the deepest affliction, which no wealth could purchase, or power bestow.
Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.
There are not a few among the disciples of charity who require, in their vocation, scarcely less excitement than the votaries of pleasure in theirs.
You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.
Christmas is a poor excuse every 25th of December to pick a man's pockets.
Reading and life are not separate but symbiotic. And for this serious task of imaginative discovery and self-discovery, there is and remains one perfect symbol: the printed book.
I'm a firm believer that there's no way that a six-year-old should have a helmet on and learn a tackling drill.
History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders; without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him.
The library, with its Daedalian labyrinth, mysterious hush, and faintly ominous aroma of knowledge, has been replaced by the computer's cheap glow, pesky chirp, and data spillage.
Some read to think, these are rare; some to write, these are common; and some read to talk, and these form the great majority.
The library, I believe, is the last of our public institutions to which you can go without credentials. You don't even need the sticker on your windshield that you need to get into the public beach. All you need is the willingness to read.
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