Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.
Interpretation
The importance of syntax highlights its role in clear communication and understanding.
In this quote, Steinbeck emphasizes the significance of syntax in language and thought, suggesting that the structure of our communication has been recognized as vital to society's functioning. By placing syntax in a prominent position, he points out its foundational role in conveying meaning and fostering meaningful discourse in the republic, reflecting on how language shapes our social interactions and collective identity.
In practice
In a lecture about the significance of language in society, one might quote Steinbeck to highlight the role of syntax.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
By asking a novel question that you don't know the answer to, you discover whether you can formulate a way of finding the answer, and you stretch your own mind, and very often you learn something new.
Think about every problem, every challenge, we face. The solution to each starts with education.
I see children, all children, as humanity's most precious resource, because it will be to them that the care of the planet will always be left.
A university is a place where ancient tradition thrives alongside the most revolutionary ideas. Perhaps as no other institution, a university is simultaneously committed to the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow.
Nothing is more terrible than to see ignorance in action.
There are two extremes to be avoided: one is the attitude of contempt toward education, the other is the tragic snobbery of assuming that marching through an educational system is a sure cure for ignorance and mediocrity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.