If the tongue had not been framed for articulation, man would still be a beast in the forest.
Interpretation
Language distinguishes humans from animals, enabling complex communication and thought.
Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote emphasizes the importance of language in human development. Without the ability to articulate thoughts and ideas, humanity would remain primitive, lacking the sophisticated communication that advances culture, knowledge, and civilization. Language is not just a tool for communication; it is a defining characteristic of what it means to be human.
In practice
In a speech about education, one might quote this to highlight the role of language in learning.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
There is a peculiar aesthetic pleasure in constructing the form of a syllabus, or a book of essays, or a course of lectures. Visions and shadows of people and ideas can be arranged and rearranged like stained-glass pieces in a window, or chessmen on a board.
I am confident in saying that Oberlin did more for me than vice versa. I took a fantastic class in religion, which led me to archaeology, which got me to the Middle East, which led me to international relations, which launched me on my career.
Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature.
The only advice ... that one person can give another about reading is to take no advice, to follow your own instincts, to use your own reason, to come to your own conclusions.
When I went to my local grammar school, Lurgan College, girls were not encouraged to study science. My parents hit the roof and, along with other parents, demanded a curriculum change.
For me, I guess the main motivation is the satisfaction of finally understanding some tricky mathematical concept or phenomenon and then explaining it to others.
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