The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you're not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one.
Herman WoukRead
The door available to everyone that can lead to happiness & success is the modest door of the public library. I found it to be so in my own life and work.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Access to knowledge and resources in libraries can lead to personal happiness and success.
In this quote, Herman Wouk emphasizes the importance of public libraries as a gateway to knowledge and opportunities that can significantly enhance one's life. He reflects on his own experiences, suggesting that the simple act of utilizing library resources has been a key factor in his journey towards happiness and achievement.
Themes
LibrarySuccessHappinessEducationKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of education, I would quote Herman Wouk to inspire young readers.
More from Herman Wouk
All quotes →The Navy is a master plan designed by geniuses for execution by idiots. If you are not an idiot, but find yourself in the Navy, you can only operate well by pretending to be one. All the shortcuts and economies and common-sense changes that your native intelligence suggests to you are mistakes. Learn to quash them. Constantly ask yourself, "How would I do this if I were a fool?" Throttle down your mind to a crawl. Then you will never go wrong.
Herman WoukRead
I learned about machinery, I learned how men behaved under pressure, and I learned about Americans.
Herman WoukRead
Let us fill a cup and drink to that most noble, ridiculous, laughable, sublime figure in our lives... The Young Man Who Was. Let us drink to his dreams, for they were rainbow-colored; to his appetites, for they were strong; to his blunders, for they were huge; to his pains for they were sharp; to his time for it was brief; and to his end, for it was to become one of us.
Herman WoukRead
Every hour spent on the Caine was a great hour in all our lives-if you don't think so now you will later on, more and more.
Herman WoukRead
War is a business in which a lot of people watch a few people get killed and are damn glad it wasn't them.
Herman WoukRead
Similar quotes
It said what he would have said, if it had been possible for him to set his scattered thoughts in order. It was the product of a mind similar to his own, but enormously more powerful, more systematic, less fear-ridden. The best books, he perceived, are those that tell you what you know already.
George OrwellRead
Language is more fashion than science, and matters of usage, spelling and pronunciation tend to wander around like hemlines.
Bill BrysonRead
It may be said that an education which does not succeed in making poetry a resource in the business of life as well as in its leisure, has something the matter with it.
John DeweyRead
I do feel, in my dreamings and yearnings, so undiscovered by those who are able to help me.
Mary Mcleod BethuneRead
The one thing you have to do if you write a book is put yourself in someone else's shoes. The reader's shoes. You've got to entertain them.
Mark HaddonRead
He who refuses to learn deserves extinction.
Hillel The ElderRead