Be convinced that, if man were able to reach the end without preparatory studies, such studies would not be preparatory but tiresome and utterly superfluous.
Interpretation
Knowledge and preparation are essential for meaningful achievement.
This quote emphasizes the importance of preparatory studies and learning as foundational elements that enable individuals to reach their goals successfully. Maimonides suggests that without the need for preparation, the journey towards an end goal would lack significance and value, highlighting that effort and study are vital for meaningful progress and understanding.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about the importance of education for students.
If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.
There are eight rungs in charity. The highest is when you help a man to help himself.
God who preceded all existence is a refuge.
When man possesses a good, sound body that does not overpower him nor disturb the equilibrium in him, he possesses a divine gift. In short, a good constitution facilitates the rule of the soul over the body, but it is not impossible to conquer a bad constitution by training.
If the whole earth is infinitely small in comparison with the sphere of the stars, what is man compared with all these created beings!
One should see the world, and see himself as a scale with an equal balance of good and evil. When he does one good deed the scale is tipped to the good - he and the world is saved. When he does one evil deed the scale is tipped to the bad - he and the world is destroyed.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future.
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.
Language is the tool of the tools
School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught. Once this lesson is learned, people lose their incentive to grow in independence; they no longer find relatedness attractive, and close themselves off to the surprises which life offers when it is not predetermined by institutional definition.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start
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