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I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.
Arthur Conan Doyle
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Knowledge is accumulated through personal choices and experiences.

This quote suggests that the human mind is a blank slate at birth, akin to an empty attic, and it is our responsibility to fill it with knowledge and information we find valuable. The choices we make about what we learn and believe shape our understanding of the world, much like how one decorates an attic with chosen furnishings.

Themes

KnowledgeLearningEducationMindChoices

In practice

Example use cases

During a graduation speech, it could be used to encourage students about their future learning.

More from Arthur Conan Doyle

It has always seemed to me that so long as you produce your dramatic effect, accuracy of detail matters little. I have never striven for it and I have made some bad mistakes in consequence. What matter if I hold my readers?
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I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air -- or as free as an income of eleven shillings and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained.
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A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
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You yourself may not be luminous, but you are a conductor of light.
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I could not rest, Watson, I could not sit quiet in my chair, if I thought that such a man as Professor Moriarty were walking the streets of London unchallenged.
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It seems very strange ... that in the course of the world's history so obvious an improvement should never have been adopted. ... The next generation of Britishers would be the better for having had this extra hour of daylight in their childhood.
Arthur Conan DoyleRead

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