Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can't hope to attain through hard work and emulation.
Martha NussbaumRead
The imagination is an innate gift, but it needs refinement and cultivation; this is what the humanities provide.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Imagination is a natural ability that requires development, which is fostered by the humanities.
This quote emphasizes that while imagination is a natural human trait, it is not enough on its own; it must be nurtured and refined through education and the study of the humanities. The humanities—encompassing literature, philosophy, arts, and history—play a crucial role in developing our imaginative capacities, enabling us to think critically and creatively about the world around us.
Themes
ImaginationHumanitiesEducationCreativityCultivation
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of arts education, one might quote this to highlight the role of imagination.
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I find so often, you know, just on a very mundane level; you've got a meeting and your child's acting in a school play. You can't do both things. And it's not simply that you can't do both, but whatever you do, you're going to be neglecting something that's really important.
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Look at the great tradition of Western political philosophy. Those people were all immersed in revolutionary movements. Most weren't career academics - often, they were too radical to be accepted in the academy. Rousseau's books were banned. Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill couldn't hold academic positions because they were atheists.
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The best learning happens in real life with real problems and real people and not in classrooms.
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I became a librarian at the Sainte-Genevieve Library in Paris. I made this gesture to rid myself of a certain milieu, a certain attitude, to have a clean conscience, but also to make a living. I was twenty-five. I had been told that one must make a living, and I believed it.
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There are more men ennobled by study than by nature.
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The great thing about working out at a gym is that if you put in effort, you get very obvious results. The same should be true of college. A professor’s job is to teach students how to see their minds growing in the same way they can see their muscles grow when they look in a mirror.
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My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will.
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