Category Archives: Quotes

As every second post on this site is a quote. You’ll find a deep and broad variety of quotes under this category, which overlap with several other tags and categories. Many of the quotes are larded with links for deeper reading on the subject of the quote, or connections between the subject of the quotes and other people, things, or ideas. See the Taxonomies page for more about this category.

Term of Art: Readiness

“The degree to which an individual is prepared developmentally to learn a new skill. Readiness is a term often used in early education to describe a child’s acquisition of prerequisite emotional, social and cognitive skills for academic learning.

For example, reading readiness would include pre-reading skills such as letter identification, print awareness, and rhyming. When a child has demonstrated mastery of such skills, that child would be ready to learn to read.

However, the concept of readiness can be applied to any stage of learning. For example, readiness for algebra must mean an individual has mastered certain mathematical calculations.

Normal three- to six-year-olds acquire academic and social readiness naturally when brought up in a literate environment, but developmentally delayed, learning disabled, or environmentally deprived children may need extra training or early intervention to prepare them for learning. Early school failure or unnecessary referrals can be prevented with some extra attention in early education to bolster children’s readiness for school.”

Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.

Calvin, to Hobbes, on Extraterrestrial Contact

“Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.”

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (comic strip), 8 Nov. 1989

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Rotten Reviews: Rudyard Kipling

“I’m sorry, Mr. Kipling, but you just don’t know how to use the English language.”

San Francisco Examiner, rejection letter to Kipling, 1889″

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

The Devil’s Dictionary: President

“President n. The leading figure in a small group of men of whom—and of whom only—it is positively known that immense numbers of their countrymen did not want any of them for President.”

Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. David E. Schultz and S.J. Joshi, eds. The Unabridged Devil’s Dictionary. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2000. 

Paideia Program (n)

“An approach to teaching developed by philosopher Mortimer Adler that combines coaching, lecturing, and Socratic dialogue as teaching methods to encourage deep thinking about such traditional subjects as literature, mathematics, science, and the performing arts. Adler’s Paideia Proposal, and Paideia Problems and Possibilities are rooted in the social, political, and educational philosophy of Aristotle.”

Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.

John Maynard Keynes on Work

“I work for a Government I despise for ends I think criminal.”

Letter to Duncan Grant, 15 December 1917

Excerpted from: Shapiro, Fred, ed. The Yale Book of Quotations. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.

Freud’s 3 Elements of Personality

Id * Ego * Superego

“Sigmund Freud conceived of the personality as consisting of three interrelated influences. The Id is a person’s natural instincts and desires, such as to procreate, to eat and to survive. The Ego uses reason to mediate between reality and the Id, so one might say that in today’s world I can only afford two children, or there are six people needing to eat so I can’t have the whole chicken. Lastly, there is the Superego, akin to the conscience, and thought to originate as an internal version of what parents, school, and society teach. This introduces the concept of ‘I should’–for example, share my good fortune with those less fortunate than myself.”

Excerpted from: Rogerson, Barnaby. Rogerson’s Book of Numbers: The Culture of Numbers–from 1,001 Nights to the Seven Wonders of the World. New York: Picador, 2013.

The Algonquin Wits: Harold Ross on Coherence

Ross once stated emphatically to Robert Benchley: ‘Don’t think I’m not incoherent.'”

Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.

Rotten Reviews: Darkness at Noon by Arthur Koestler

The book is long, drawn out, full of repetitions, and marred throughout by its obscenity and irreligion.”

Catholic World

Excerpted from: Bernard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.

Naive Art (n)

“Primarily understood as works produced by artists who lack formal training, although trained artists may deliberately affect a naive style. The term most clearly describes such early-20th-century artists as the Douanier Rousseau, whose childlike, non-naturalistic paintings completed in bright colors influenced early modern artists. Their apparent affinity with non-Western art and their bold expressiveness made them appealing to the early Modernists searching for new forms of expression.

See ‘Outsider’ art.”

Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.