I have always been of the mind that in a democracy manners are the only effective weapons against the bowie-knife.
James Russell LowellRead
True scholarship consists in knowing not what things exist, but what they mean; it is not memory but judgment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True scholarship goes beyond memorization and focuses on understanding the significance of knowledge.
James Russell Lowell emphasizes that genuine scholarship is not about merely recalling facts, but about comprehending their implications and meanings. It highlights the importance of judgment and critical thinking over rote learning, suggesting that true intellectual engagement involves deep analysis and reflection on the knowledge we acquire.
Themes
ScholarshipEducationUnderstandingKnowledgeJudgment
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture to highlight the importance of critical thinking in education.
More from James Russell Lowell
All quotes →The foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions.
James Russell LowellRead
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
James Russell LowellRead
Good luck is the willing handmaid of upright, energetic character, and conscientious observance of duty.
James Russell LowellRead
Puritanism, believing itself quick with the seed of religious liberty, laid, without knowing it, the egg of democracy.
James Russell LowellRead
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
James Russell LowellRead
Similar quotes
It is the power of words and books - explaining and dramatizing great ideas and articulating high ideals - that is the greatest weapon in the missionary's arsenal.
John C. BogleRead
The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They’re operated as holding pens—miniature jails, really. It’s only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated.
Barack ObamaRead
Nothing is so well learned as that which is discovered.
SocratesRead
Children get smashed for hours on some strictly limited aspect of the Great Big Everything, the Universe, such as water or snow or mud or colors or rocks.
Kurt VonnegutRead
If children have interest, then Education happens
Sugata MitraRead
I wish for everyone to help create a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.
Jamie OliverRead