I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the differing motivations people have when they read.
William Lyon Phelps suggests that readers can be classified based on their intent when they engage with texts. Some individuals seek to retain knowledge and insights from their reading, aiming for understanding and memory retention, while others may approach reading as a means of escape or distraction, hoping to forget their current realities and immerse themselves in a different narrative.
In practice
In a book club discussion to explore different reading motivations.
Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
Life, with all it's sorrows, cares, perplexities and heart-breaks, is more interesting than bovine placidity, hence more desirable. The more interesting it is, the happier it is.
The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.
Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.
You can be deprived of your money, your job and your home by someone else, but remember that no one can ever take away your honor.
My mother helped me understand how not to show off what I knew, but how to use it so that others might benefit.
Imagine a world where children were fed tasty and nutritious, real food at school from the age of 4 to 18. A world where every child was educated about how amazing food is, where it comes from, how it affects the body and how it can save their lives.
Libraries are the thin red line between civilization and barbarism.
There are all kinds of monuments to adults - usually dead and usually white. But we don't often lift up the extraordinary work of children.
What I had to face, the very bitter lesson that everyone who wants to write has got to learn, was that a thing may in itself be the finest piece of writing one has ever done, and yet have absolutely no place in the manuscript one hopes to publish.
The wrong things are predominantly stressed in the schools - things remote from the student's experience and need.
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