If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
David McculloughRead
I just thank my father and mother, my lucky stars, that I had the advantage of an education in the humanities.
Interpretation
The speaker expresses gratitude for receiving a humanities education from their parents.
David McCullough reflects on the importance of his upbringing and the educational opportunities he was afforded through the humanities. He acknowledges the role of his parents and fate in shaping his appreciation for the arts and humanities, suggesting that such education provides valuable insights into human nature and society.
In practice
During a graduation speech to celebrate the achievements of students in the humanities, this quote highlights the value of their education.
If you get down about the state of American culture, just remember there are still more public libraries in this country than there are McDonalds.
There is only one person who can measure your success. That person is you.
Napoleon could never imagine that some people loved their country as much as he loved his own.
When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.
Any nation that expects to be ignorant and free," Jefferson said, "expects what never was and never will be." And if the gap between the educated and the uneducated in America continues to grow as it is in our time, as fast as or faster than the gap between the rich and the poor, the gap between the educated and the uneducated is going to be of greater consequence and the more serious threat to our way of life. We must not, by any means, misunderstand that.
Read. Read every chance you get. Read to keep growing. Read history. Read poetry. Read for pure enjoyment. Read a book called Life on a Little Known Planet. It's about insects. It will make you feel better.
You can’t learn your craft by copying me or anyone else. I hope what I do can do is in some way inspire others but I would be appalled if I thought my work was being studied as ‘the right way to do the job’. My way is just one of an infinite number of ways to do the job.
BE A STUDENT BY STAYING OPEN AND WILLING TO LEARN FROM EVERYONE AND ANYONE.
Corliss had never once considered the fate of library books. She'd never wondered how many books go unread. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an inconsiderate lover, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.
School houses do not teach themselves - piles of brick and mortar and machinery do not send out men. It is the trained, living human soul, cultivated and strengthened by long study and thought, that breathes the real breath of life into boys and girls and makes them human, whether they be black or white, Greek, Russian or American.
Imagine a world where children were fed tasty and nutritious, real food at school from the age of 4 to 18. A world where every child was educated about how amazing food is, where it comes from, how it affects the body and how it can save their lives.
Books, for me, are a home. Books don’t make a home – they are one, in the sense that just as you do with a door, you open a book, and you go inside. Inside there is a different kind of time and a different kind of space.
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