Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
I know many books which have bored their readers, but I know of none which has done real evil.
Interpretation
Books can be dull, but they rarely cause harm.
In this quote, Voltaire suggests that while many books may fail to engage or excite their readers, the act of reading itself is not detrimental. He emphasizes that literature, no matter how boring, does not possess the capacity to inflict real harm, contrasting the passive experience of reading with the potential consequences of other human actions.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of reading and education.
Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
He was a great patriot, a humanitarian, a loyal friend; provided, of course, he really is dead.
It is dangerous to be right in matters where established men are wrong.
It is not sufficient to see and to know the beauty of a work. We must feel and be affected by it.
We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies - it is the first law of nature.
It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.
But without doubts, without a standpoint reached through questionings, human beings can't acquire knowledge.
When you're a kid, you learn whatever your parents think until you start taking in media. Because all your friends are your age as well, media is the third parent that you ever have. So I think about that a lot, what visual imagery is teaching us, and media in general having a huge impact.
There is dust enough on some of your Bibles to write 'damnation' with your fingers.
Formal education must change. It needs to be brought into closer alignment with the world as it actually is, into closer harmony with the way human beings actually learn and thrive.
I understand now my father really thought he was doing me good. Education means a lot to Palestinians. We’ve become some of the most educated people in the world through our diaspora. We’ve had to be. When you ain’t got land, your degree may be your only solid ground. May father felt (feels) that being a doctor would give me security. How can I explain that I’m not safe from anything if I don’t write?
If you just do something, then you're a five-year wonder and, goodbye, you're gone. But if people feel it's worthwhile, not only do they copy but they want to learn how to do it To me, that's what it's all about. If someone were to ask me, 'What's the number one thing, in essence, that you left behind?' It was the teaching of others so that they could take my work and take it further.
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