Authors like cats because they are such quiet, lovable, wise creatures, and cats like authors for the same reasons.
Robertson DaviesRead
The greatest gift that Oxford gives her sons is, I truly believe, a genial irreverence toward learning, and from that irreverence love may spring.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the value of a playful and questioning attitude towards learning as a pathway to genuine understanding and love for knowledge.
Robertson Davies suggests that the unique educational experience at Oxford nurtures a spirit of irreverence among its students, encouraging them to question and challenge traditional ideas. This attitude not only makes learning more enjoyable but also fosters a deeper affection for the pursuit of knowledge, highlighting the importance of curiosity and creativity in education.
Themes
EducationIrreverenceLearningCuriosityLoveKnowledge
In practice
Example use cases
During a commencement speech, to inspire graduates to embrace learning as a journey rather than a task.
More from Robertson Davies
All quotes βPessimism is a very easy way out because it is a short view of life. If you look at what is happening around us today, you can't help but feel that life is a terrible complexity of problems. But if you look back a few thousand years, you realize that we have advanced fantastically. If you take a long view, I do not see how you can be pessimistic about the future of mankind.
Robertson DaviesRead
This is one of the cruelties of the theatre of life; we all think of ourselves as stars and rarely recognize it when we are indeed mere supporting characters or even supernumeraries.
Robertson DaviesRead
Everything matters. The Universe is approximately fifteen billion years old, and I swear that in all that time, nothing has ever happened that has not mattered, has not contributed in some way to the totality.
Robertson DaviesRead
The egotist is all surface; underneath is a pulpy mess and a lot of self-doubt. But the egoist may be yielding and even deferential in things he doesn't consider important; in anything that touches his core he is remorseless.
Robertson DaviesRead
The world is full of people whose notion of a satisfactory future is, in fact, a return to the idealized past.
Robertson DaviesRead
Similar quotes
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.
Herman WoukRead
The aim of education is to guide young persons in the process _x000D_ through which they shape themselves as human persons-armed with knowledge, strength of judgment, and moral virtues-while at the same time conveying to them the spiritual heritage of the nation and the civilization in which they are involved.
Jacques MaritainRead
I loved teaching, but every day that I went to work, I carried the worry that I was hurting my kids because I wasn't at home with them.
Elizabeth WarrenRead
From the standpoint of the child, the great waste in the school comes from his inability to utilize the experiences he gets outside the school in any complete and free way within the school itself; while, on the other hand, he is unable to apply in daily life what he is learning at school. That is the isolation of the school β its isolation from life.
John DeweyRead
Truly, learning appears to be a reverse geometric progression with experiences at one hour, one day, one month or one year dramatically more influential and formative than later experiences. As has often been quoted, 85% of brain development takes place by age 3, and yet we spend only 4% of our educational dollars by that point.
George KaiserRead
I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
William Lyon PhelpsRead