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Nobody has ever thought himself to death. The chief danger confronting us is not age. It is laziness, sloth, routine, stupidity, - forcing their way in like wind through the shutters, seeping into the cellar like swamp water.

Gilbert Highet

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Gilbert Highet
Age: 71 †
Born: 1906
Born: June 22
Died: 1978
Died: January 20
Classical Philologist
Classical Scholar
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
University Teacher
Writer
Glasgow
Scotland
Way
Danger
Sloth
Like
Nobody
Forcing
Wind
Confronting
Seeping
Age
Laziness
Cellar
Water
Chief
Swamp
Death
Chiefs
Shutters
Thought
Routine
Cellars
Ever
Stupidity
Swamps

More quotes by Gilbert Highet

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A very wise old teacher once said: I consider a day's teaching wasted if we do not all have one hearty laugh.
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Most Americans do not like poetry. We may respect it, but we do not enjoy it.
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A good teacher is a determined person
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These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
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The Sonnets of Shakespeare have the fascination of an autobiography, without its clarity. It is like reading an important document in a cave by the light of matches which keep blowing out.
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The best school in the world will scarcely save a boy who hates the school and the purpose it serves and the society that created it.
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The aim of those who try to control thought is always the same. They find one single explanation of the world, one system of thought and action that will (they believe) cover everything and then they try to impose that on all thinking people.
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If you do not actually like boys and girls, or young men and young women, give up teaching.
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The real duty of man is not to extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul.
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Many of the twisted minds and crippled characters in the world were made by careless parents who kept their children away from knives and fires, but put permanent scars on their souls.
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A period of high civilization is one in which thoughts fly freely from mind to mind, from one country to another-yes, from the past into the present.
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Poetry is halfway between prose and music: it is sometimes like an intimate conversation, in words and phrases which need not be fully uttered, and sometimes like dancing and wordless music.
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At certain times and in certain schools it is orthodox to be a rebel and in general it is a very poor class that does not contain at least three pupils who can be counted on to oppose the teachers authority and loudly and persistently to question everything he says.
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Wherever there are beginners and experts, old and young, there is some kind of learning going on, some kind of teaching. We are all pupils and we are all teachers.
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The teacher's chief difficulty is poverty. He (or she) belongs to a badly paid profession. He cannot dress and live like a workman, but he is sometimes paid as little as an unskilled laborer.
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Know the subject love the subject like your students know your students.
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Like all great teachers he knew that a picture is worth a thousand words and that people learn most quickly by doing something or seeing something done.
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History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles.
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Language is a living thing
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The wise teacher knows that 55 minutes of work plus 5 minutes laughter are worth twice as much as 60 minutes of unvaried work.
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