Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity
Interpretation
Education should provide opportunities that allow individuals to achieve greatness, regardless of their background.
Thomas Jefferson's quote emphasizes the importance of education as a means to create a fair society where everyone has equal access to opportunities. It suggests that through a robust educational system, individuals can rise to achieve excellence, forming a merit-based elite that benefits society as a whole, rather than a society based solely on inherited privilege.
In practice
In a speech promoting educational reform, one could use this quote to highlight the need for equal access to education.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
I, place economy among the first & most important republican virtues, & public debt as the greatest of the dangers to be feared
βWe must make our choice between economy and liberty or confusion and servitude...If we run into such debts, we must be taxed in our meat and drink, in our necessities and comforts, in our labor and in our amusements...if we can prevent the government from wasting the labor of the people, under the pretense of caring for them, they will be happy.
Very many and very meritorious were the worthy patriots who assisted in bringing back our government to its republican tack. To preserve it in that, will require unremitting vigilance.
A nation, as a society, forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society.
Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.
There should be no telephone in your writing room, certainly no TV or videogames for you to fool around with. If thereβs a window, draw the curtains or pull down the shades unless it looks out at a blank wall.
My worst subject in school was school, but it turns out I'm great at starting them.
Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light.
Even though I am the daughter of a poet, and my stepmother is also a poet, growing up, I didn't think I could understand poetry; I didn't think that it had any relevance to my life, the feelings that I endured on a day-to-day basis, until I was introduced to the right poem.
We urgently need a paradigm shift in our concept of the purposes and practices of education. We need to leave behind the concept of education as a passport to more money and higher status in the future and replace it with a concept of education as an ongoing process that enlists the tremendous energies and creativity of schoolchildren in rebuilding and respiriting our communities and our cities now, in the present.
Read some good, heavy, serious books just for discipline: Take yourself in hand and master yourself.
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