Prejudices are what fools use for reason.
VoltaireRead
The multitude of books is making us ignorant.
Interpretation
The overwhelming number of books can lead to confusion and ignorance rather than enlightenment.
In this quote, Voltaire suggests that while books are meant to educate and inform, an excess of literature can have the opposite effect, resulting in ignorance. This points to the idea that quality and critical thinking are more important than quantity when it comes to knowledge acquisition.
In practice
This quote could be used during a lecture about the importance of critical reading in academia.
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.
I did all of my learning on 'My Fair Lady.'
We live in a moment and a culture when reading is really endangered. There's simply no way to write well, though, if you're not reading well.
I grew up at a time in Hawaii where there were trans women around, so there were visible role models for me. At the same time, as a low-income trans girl of color, there were so many things that I didn't have access to. I didn't have access to a great education. I didn't have access to affordable healthcare.
Just once in a while let us exalt the importance of ideas and information.
What I've found about it is that there are some folks you can talk to until you're blue in the face--they're never going to get it and they're never going to change. But every once in a while, you'll run into someone who is eager to listen, eager to learn, and willing to try new things. Those are the people we need to reach. We have a responsibility as parents, older people, teachers, people in the neighborhood to recognize that.
We go into rural communities and all we do, like has been done in this room, is create the space. When these girls sit, you unlock intelligence, you unlock passion, you unlock commitment, you unlock focus, you unlock great leaders.
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