Sunday, July 7, 2013

The Heart of the Matter




The value of an education in a liberal arts college is the training of the mind to think something that cannot be learned from textbooks.
~Albert Einstein

In my parents' day and age, it used to be the person who fell short. Now it's the discipline. Reading the classics is too difficult, therefore it's the classics that are to blame. Today the student asserts his incapacity as a privilege. 'I can't learn it, so there is something wrong with it.'
~Philip Roth

The ‘deep’ civic function of the humanities . . . is something understood very well by totalitarian societies, which tend to keep close tabs on them, and to circumscribe them in direct proportion to how stringently the population is controlled.
~Mark Slouka

It’s technology married with liberal arts, humanities, that yields us the result that makes our heart sing.
~Steve Jobs

3 comments:

Tara @ A Teaching Life said...

Wow.Again. Such a powerful post to read, view, think about. "The pursuit of ideas in the marketplace of our future." So proud to be a teacher of the humanities, and so glad you thought to create this post today. Thank you, Tabatha!

Linda B said...

Wow, Tabatha. So often you make me think of that wider picture. Thank you! I hope many see this!

GretchenJoanna said...

I do like these quotes - the Philip Roth one especially. My Latin teacher reminded us that the humanities make us better humans.