Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the vastness of knowledge and the limitations of time in attempting to learn it.
John Edward Williams reflects on the experience of a scholar who, despite being deeply engrossed in reading, becomes acutely aware of his own ignorance and the overwhelming amount of knowledge yet to be absorbed. This realization brings a sense of urgency and melancholy as he acknowledges the limited time available in life to satisfy his thirst for learning.
In practice
In a speech about lifelong learning, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of continuous education.
A war doesn’t merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that’s left is the brute, the creature that we—you and I and others like us—have brought up from the slime.
The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly.
Routinely, when I finish a book, I think 'What will I do? Where will I get an idea?' And a kind of low-level panic sets in.
Let not a single day pass without your learning a verse, half a verse, or a fourth of it, or even one letter of it; nor without attending to charity, study and other pious activity.
Learn to write well, or not to write at all.
People don't know how to listen, and it's not their fault. In school, we learn how to read, we learn how to write - but nobody teaches you how to listen.
I cannot read a single word of the Hindoos without being elevated.
This pedagogy makes oppression and its causes objects of reflection by the oppressed, and from that reflection will come their necessary engagement in the struggle for their liberation. And in the struggle this pedagogy will be made and remade
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