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13 | reyssat | 1 | A book is the work of a mind, doing its work in the way that a mind deems |
2 | best. That's dangerous. Is the work of some mere individual mind likely to |
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3 | serve the aims of collectively accepted compromises, which are known in the |
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4 | schools as 'standards'? Any mind that would audaciously put itself forth to |
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5 | work all alone is surely a bad example for the students, and probably, if |
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6 | not downright antisocial, at least a little off-center, self-indulgent, |
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7 | elitist. ... It's just good pedagogy, therefore, to stay away from such |
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8 | stuff, and use instead, if film-strips and rap-sessions must be |
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9 | supplemented, 'texts,' selected, or prepared, or adapted, by real |
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10 | professionals. Those texts are called 'reading material.' They are the |
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11 | academic equivalent of the 'listening material' that fills waiting-rooms, |
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12 | and the 'eating material' that you can buy in thousands of convenient eating |
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13 | resource centers along the roads. |
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14 | -- The Underground Grammarian |
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15 | % |
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16 | A definition of teaching: casting fake pearls before real swine. |
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17 | -- Bill Cain, "Stand Up Tragedy" |
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18 | % |
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19 | A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and |
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20 | art into pedantry. Hence University education. |
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21 | -- G. B. Shaw |
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22 | % |
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23 | A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened |
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24 | into place but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the |
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25 | hope of greening the landscape of idea. |
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26 | -- John Ciardi |
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27 | % |
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28 | A grammarian's life is always in tense. |
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29 | % |
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30 | A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely |
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31 | rearranging their prejudices. |
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32 | -- William James |
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33 | % |
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34 | A mother mouse was taking her large brood for a stroll across the kitchen |
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35 | floor one day when the local cat, by a feat of stealth unusual even for |
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36 | its species, managed to trap them in a corner. The children cowered, |
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37 | terrified by this fearsome beast, plaintively crying, "Help, Mother! |
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38 | Save us! Save us! We're scared, Mother!" |
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39 | Mother Mouse, with the hopeless valor of a parent protecting its |
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40 | children, turned with her teeth bared to the cat, towering huge above them, |
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41 | and suddenly began to bark in a fashion that would have done any Doberman |
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42 | proud. The startled cat fled in fear for its life. |
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43 | As her grateful offspring flocked around her shouting "Oh, Mother, |
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44 | you saved us!" and "Yay! You scared the cat away!" she turned to them |
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45 | purposefully and declared, "You see how useful it is to know a second |
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46 | language?" |
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47 | % |
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48 | A Parable of Modern Research: |
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49 | |||
50 | Bob has lost his keys in a room which is dark except for one |
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51 | brightly lit corner. |
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52 | "Why are you looking under the light, you lost them in the dark!" |
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53 | "I can only see here." |
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54 | % |
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55 | A pencil with no point needs no eraser. |
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56 | % |
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57 | A Plan for the Improvement of English Spelling |
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58 | by Mark Twain |
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59 | |||
60 | For example, in Year 1 that useless letter "c" would be dropped |
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61 | to be replased either by "k" or "s", and likewise "x" would no longer |
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62 | be part of the alphabet. The only kase in which "c" would be retained |
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63 | would be the "ch" formation, which will be dealt with later. Year 2 |
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64 | might reform "w" spelling, so that "which" and "one" would take the |
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65 | same konsonant, wile Year 3 might well abolish "y" replasing it with |
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66 | "i" and Iear 4 might fiks the "g/j" anomali wonse and for all. |
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67 | Jenerally, then, the improvement would kontinue iear bai iear |
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68 | with Iear 5 doing awai with useless double konsonants, and Iears 6-12 |
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69 | or so modifaiing vowlz and the rimeining voist and unvoist konsonants. |
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70 | Bai Iear 15 or sou, it wud fainali bi posibl tu meik ius ov thi |
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71 | ridandant letez "c", "y" and "x" -- bai now jast a memori in the maindz |
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72 | ov ould doderez -- tu riplais "ch", "sh", and "th" rispektivli. |
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73 | Fainali, xen, aafte sam 20 iers ov orxogrefkl riform, wi wud |
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74 | hev a lojikl, kohirnt speling in ius xrewawt xe Ingliy-spiking werld. |
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75 | % |
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76 | A professor is one who talks in someone else's sleep. |
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77 | % |
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78 | A reader reports that when the patient died, the attending doctor |
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79 | recorded the following on the patient's chart: "Patient failed to fulfill |
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80 | his wellness potential." |
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81 | Another doctor reports that in a recent issue of the *American Journal |
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82 | of Family Practice* fleas were called "hematophagous arthropod vectors." |
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83 | A reader reports that the Army calls them "vertically deployed anti- |
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84 | personnel devices." You probably call them bombs. |
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85 | At McClellan Air Force base in Sacramento, California, civilian |
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86 | mechanics were placed on "non-duty, non-pay status." That is, they were fired. |
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87 | After taking the trip of a lifetime, our reader sent his twelve rolls |
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88 | of film to Kodak for developing (or "processing," as Kodak likes to call it) |
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89 | only to receive the following notice: "We must report that during the handling |
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90 | of your twelve 35mm Kodachrome slide orders, the films were involved in an |
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91 | unusual laboratory experience." The use of the passive is a particularly nice |
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92 | touch, don't you think? Nobody did anything to the films; they just had a bad |
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93 | experience. Of course our reader can always go back to Tibet and take his |
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94 | pictures all over again, using the twelve replacement rolls Kodak so generously |
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95 | sent him. |
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96 | -- Quarterly Review of Doublespeak (NCTE) |
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97 | % |
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98 | A student who changes the course of history is probably taking an exam. |
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99 | % |
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100 | A synonym is a word you use when you can't spell the word you first |
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101 | thought of. |
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102 | -- Burt Bacharach |
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103 | % |
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104 | A tautology is a thing which is tautological. |
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105 | % |
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106 | A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest |
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107 | in students. |
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108 | -- John Ciardi |
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109 | % |
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110 | "A University without students is like an ointment without a fly." |
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111 | -- Ed Nather, professor of astronomy at UT Austin |
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112 | % |
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113 | About all some men accomplish in life is to send a son to Harvard. |
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114 | % |
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115 | Abstract: |
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116 | This study examined the incidence of neckwear tightness among a group |
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117 | of 94 white-collar working men and the effect of a tight business-shirt collar |
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118 | and tie on the visual performance of 22 male subjects. Of the white-collar |
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119 | men measured, 67% were found to be wearing neckwear that was tighter than |
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120 | their neck circumference. The visual discrimination of the 22 subjects was |
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121 | evaluated using a critical flicker frequency (CFF) test. Results of the CFF |
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122 | test indicated that tight neckwear significantly decreased the visual |
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123 | performance of the subjects and that visual performance did not improve |
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124 | immediately when tight neckwear was removed. |
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125 | -- Langan, L.M. and Watkins, S.M. "Pressure of Menswear on the |
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126 | Neck in Relation to Visual Performance." Human Factors 29, |
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127 | #1 (Feb. 1987), pp. 67-71. |
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128 | % |
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129 | Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, |
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130 | because the stakes are so low. |
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131 | -- Wallace Sayre |
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132 | % |
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133 | Academicians care, that's who. |
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134 | % |
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135 | =============== ALL FRESHMEN PLEASE NOTE =============== |
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136 | |||
137 | To minimize scheduling confusion, please realize that if you are taking one |
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138 | course which is offered at only one time on a given day, and another which is |
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139 | offered at all times on that day, the second class will be arranged as to |
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140 | afford maximum inconvenience to the student. For example, if you happen |
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141 | to work on campus, you will have 1-2 hours between classes. If you commute, |
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142 | there will be a minimum of 6 hours between the two classes. |
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143 | % |
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144 | An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest. |
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145 | -- Benjamin Franklin |
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146 | % |
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147 | Any two philosophers can tell each other all they know in two hours. |
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148 | -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. |
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149 | % |
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150 | As Gen. de Gaulle occassionally acknowledges America to be the daughter |
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151 | of Europe, so I am pleased to come to Yale, the daughter of Harvard. |
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152 | -- J.F. Kennedy |
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153 | % |
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154 | As long as the answer is right, who cares if the question is wrong? |
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155 | % |
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156 | Briefly stated, the findings are that when presented with an array of |
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157 | data or a sequence of events in which they are instructed to discover |
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158 | an underlying order, subjects show strong tendencies to perceive order |
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159 | and causality in random arrays, to perceive a pattern or correlation |
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160 | which seems a priori intuitively correct even when the actual correlation |
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161 | in the data is counterintuitive, to jump to conclusions about the correct |
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162 | hypothesis, to seek and to use only positive or confirmatory evidence, to |
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163 | construe evidence liberally as confirmatory, to fail to generate or to |
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164 | assess alternative hypotheses, and having thus managed to expose themselves |
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165 | only to confirmatory instances, to be fallaciously confident of the validity |
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166 | of their judgments (Jahoda, 1969; Einhorn and Hogarth, 1978). In the |
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167 | analyzing of past events, these tendencies are exacerbated by failure to |
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168 | appreciate the pitfalls of post hoc analyses. |
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169 | -- A. Benjamin |
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170 | % |
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171 | British education is probably the best in the world, if you can survive |
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172 | it. If you can't there is nothing left for you but the diplomatic corps. |
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173 | -- Peter Ustinov |
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174 | % |
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175 | ... But if we laugh with derision, we will never understand. Human |
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176 | intellectual capacity has not altered for thousands of years so far as |
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177 | we can tell. If intelligent people invested intense energy in issues |
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178 | that now seem foolish to us, then the failure lies in our understanding |
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179 | of their world, not in their distorted perceptions. Even the standard |
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180 | example of ancient nonsense -- the debate about angels on pinheads -- |
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181 | makes sense once you realize that theologians were not discussing |
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182 | whether five or eighteen would fit, but whether a pin could house a |
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183 | finite or an infinite number. |
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184 | -- S. J. Gould, "Wide Hats and Narrow Minds" |
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185 | % |
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186 | Campus sidewalks never exist as the straightest line between two points. |
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187 | -- M. M. Johnston |
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188 | % |
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189 | Comparing information and knowledge is like asking whether the fatness |
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190 | of a pig is more or less green than the designated hitter rule." |
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191 | -- David Guaspari |
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192 | % |
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193 | Dear Freshman, |
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194 | You don't know who I am and frankly shouldn't care, but |
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195 | unknown to you we have something in common. We are both rather |
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196 | prone to mistakes. I was elected Student Government President by |
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197 | mistake, and you came to school here by mistake. |
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198 | % |
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199 | Dear Miss Manners: |
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200 | My home economics teacher says that one must never place one's |
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201 | elbows on the table. However, I have read that one elbow, in between |
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202 | courses, is all right. Which is correct? |
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203 | |||
204 | Gentle Reader: |
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205 | For the purpose of answering examinations in your home economics |
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206 | class, your teacher is correct. Catching on to this principle of |
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207 | education may be of even greater importance to you now than learning |
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208 | correct current table manners, vital as Miss Manners believes that is. |
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209 | % |
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210 | Department chairmen never die, they just lose their faculties. |
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211 | % |
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212 | Did you know the University of Iowa closed down after someone stole the book? |
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213 | % |
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214 | Do not clog intellect's sluices with bits of knowledge of questionable uses. |
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215 | % |
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216 | Do you know the difference between education and experience? Education |
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217 | is what you get when you read the fine print; experience is what you get |
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218 | when you don't. |
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219 | -- Pete Seeger |
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220 | % |
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221 | Do you think that illiterate people get the full effect of alphabet soup? |
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222 | % |
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223 | Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and |
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224 | demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want. |
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225 | -- Charlotte Observer, 1897 |
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226 | % |
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227 | Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to |
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228 | time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. |
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229 | -- Oscar Wilde, "The Critic as Artist" |
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230 | % |
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231 | Education is learning what you didn't even know you didn't know. |
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232 | -- Daniel J. Boorstin |
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233 | % |
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234 | Education is the process of casting false pearls before real swine. |
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235 | -- Irwin Edman |
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236 | % |
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237 | Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten. |
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238 | -- B.F. Skinner |
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239 | % |
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240 | Educational television should be absolutely forbidden. It can only lead |
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241 | to unreasonable disappointment when your child discovers that the letters |
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242 | of the alphabet do not leap up out of books and dance around with |
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243 | royal-blue chickens. |
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244 | -- Fran Lebowitz, "Social Studies" |
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245 | % |
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246 | Eloquence is logic on fire. |
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247 | % |
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248 | Encyclopedia for sale by father. Son knows everything. |
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249 | % |
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250 | Engineering: "How will this work?" |
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251 | Science: "Why will this work?" |
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252 | Management: "When will this work?" |
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253 | Liberal Arts: "Do you want fries with that?" |
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254 | % |
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255 | Even if you do learn to speak correct English, whom are you going to speak |
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256 | it to? |
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257 | -- Clarence Darrow |
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258 | % |
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259 | Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My |
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260 | opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a bestseller |
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261 | that could have been prevented by a good teacher. |
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262 | -- Flannery O'Connor |
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263 | % |
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264 | Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for |
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265 | even the greatest fool may ask more the the wisest man can answer. |
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266 | -- C.C. Colton |
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267 | % |
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268 | Experience is the worst teacher. It always gives the test first and |
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269 | the instruction afterward. |
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270 | % |
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271 | F u cn rd ths u cnt spl wrth a dm! |
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272 | % |
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273 | f u cn rd ths, itn tyg h myxbl cd. |
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274 | % |
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275 | f u cn rd ths, u cn gt a gd jb n cmptr prgrmmng. |
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276 | % |
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277 | f u cn rd ths, u r prbbly a lsy spllr. |
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278 | % |
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279 | Fortune's Guide to Freshman Notetaking: |
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280 | |||
281 | WHEN THE PROFESSOR SAYS: YOU WRITE: |
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282 | |||
283 | Probably the greatest quality of the poetry John Milton -- born 1608 |
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284 | of John Milton, who was born in 1608, is the |
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285 | combination of beauty and power. Few have |
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286 | excelled him in the use of the English language, |
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287 | or for that matter, in lucidity of verse form, |
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288 | 'Paradise Lost' being said to be the greatest |
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289 | single poem ever written." |
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290 | |||
291 | Current historians have come to Most of the problems that now |
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292 | doubt the complete advantageousness face the United States are |
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293 | of some of Roosevelt's policies... directly traceable to the |
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294 | bungling and greed of President |
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295 | Roosevelt. |
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296 | |||
297 | ... it is possible that we simply do Professor Mitchell is a |
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298 | not understand the Russian viewpoint... communist. |
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299 | % |
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300 | Fourteen years in the professor dodge has taught me that one can argue |
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301 | ingeniously on behalf of any theory, applied to any piece of literature. |
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302 | This is rarely harmful, because normally no-one reads such essays. |
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303 | -- Robert Parker, quoted in "Murder Ink", ed. D. Wynn |
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304 | % |
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305 | Going to church does not make a person religious, nor does going to school |
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306 | make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a car. |
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307 | % |
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308 | Good day to avoid cops. Crawl to school. |
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309 | % |
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310 | Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths good theatre. |
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311 | -- Gail Godwin |
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312 | % |
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313 | Graduate life: It's not just a job. It's an indenture. |
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314 | % |
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315 | Graduate students and most professors are no smarter than undergrads. |
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316 | They're just older. |
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317 | % |
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318 | He that teaches himself has a fool for a master. |
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319 | -- Benjamin Franklin |
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320 | % |
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321 | "He was a modest, good-humored boy. It was Oxford that made him insufferable." |
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322 | % |
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323 | He who writes with no misspelled words has prevented a first suspicion |
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324 | on the limits of his scholarship or, in the social world, of his general |
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325 | education and culture. |
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326 | -- Julia Norton McCorkle |
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327 | % |
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328 | [He] took me into his library and showed me his books, of which he had |
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329 | a complete set. |
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330 | -- Ring Lardner |
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331 | % |
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332 | Higher education helps your earning capacity. Ask any college professor. |
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333 | % |
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334 | History books which contain no lies are extremely dull. |
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335 | % |
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336 | History is nothing but a collection of fables and useless trifles, |
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337 | cluttered up with a mass of unnecessary figures and proper names. |
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338 | -- Leo Tolstoy |
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339 | % |
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340 | How do you explain school to a higher intelligence? |
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341 | -- Elliot, "E.T." |
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342 | % |
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343 | I am a bookaholic. If you are a decent person, you will not sell me |
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344 | another book. |
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345 | % |
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346 | "I am not sure what this is, but an `F' would only dignify it." |
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347 | -- English Professor |
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348 | % |
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349 | I am returning this otherwise good typing paper to you because someone |
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350 | has printed gibberish all over it and put your name at the top. |
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351 | -- Professor Lowd, English, Ohio University |
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352 | % |
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353 | I appreciate the fact that this draft was done in haste, but some of the |
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354 | sentences that you are sending out in the world to do your work for you are |
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355 | loitering in taverns or asleep beside the highway. |
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356 | -- Dr. Dwight Van de Vate, Professor of Philosophy, |
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357 | University of Tennessee at Knoxville |
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358 | % |
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359 | I came out of twelve years of college and I didn't even know how to sew. |
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360 | All I could do was account -- I couldn't even account for myself. |
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361 | -- Firesign Theatre |
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362 | % |
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363 | I came to MIT to get an education for myself and a diploma for my mother. |
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364 | % |
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365 | I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to |
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366 | make it shorter. |
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367 | -- Blaise Pascal |
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368 | % |
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369 | "I have to convince you, or at least snow you ..." |
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370 | -- Prof. Romas Aleliunas, CS 435 |
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371 | % |
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372 | I heard a definition of an intellectual, that I thought was very interesting: |
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373 | a man who takes more words than are necessary to tell more than he knows. |
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374 | -- Dwight D. Eisenhower |
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375 | % |
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376 | I respect faith, but doubt is what gives you an education. |
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377 | -- Wilson Mizner |
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378 | % |
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379 | I think your opinions are reasonable, except for the one about my mental |
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380 | instability. |
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381 | -- Psychology Professor, Farifield University |
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382 | % |
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383 | "I'm returning this note to you, instead of your paper, because it (your paper) |
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384 | presently occupies the bottom of my bird cage." |
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385 | -- English Professor, Providence College |
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386 | % |
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387 | If any man wishes to be humbled and mortified, let him become president |
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388 | of Harvard. |
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389 | -- Edward Holyoke |
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390 | % |
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391 | If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have |
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392 | taught much more! |
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393 | % |
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394 | If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people? |
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395 | % |
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396 | If little else, the brain is an educational toy. |
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397 | -- Tom Robbins |
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398 | % |
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399 | If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. |
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400 | -- Pope John Paul I |
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401 | % |
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402 | If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get |
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403 | the police at the gates to keep order in the inrushing multitude. See in |
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404 | college how we thwart the natural love of learning by leaving the natural |
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405 | method of teaching what each wishes to learn, and insisting that you shall |
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406 | learn what you have no taste or capacity for. The college, which should |
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407 | be a place of delightful labor, is made odious and unhealthy, and the |
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408 | young men are tempted to frivolous amusements to rally their jaded spirits. |
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409 | I would have the studies elective. Scholarship is to be created not |
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410 | by compulsion, but by awakening a pure interest in knowledge. The wise |
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411 | instructor accomplishes this by opening to his pupils precisely the |
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412 | attractions the study has for himself. The marking is a system for schools, |
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413 | not for the college; for boys, not for men; and it is an ungracious work to |
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414 | put on a professor. |
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415 | -- Ralph Waldo Emerson |
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416 | % |
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417 | If truth is beauty, how come no one has their hair done in the library? |
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418 | -- Lily Tomlin |
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419 | % |
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420 | If we spoke a different language, we would perceive a somewhat different world. |
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421 | -- Wittgenstein |
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422 | % |
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423 | If while you are in school, there is a shortage of qualified personnel |
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424 | in a particular field, then by the time you graduate with the necessary |
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425 | qualifications, that field's employment market is glutted. |
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426 | -- Marguerite Emmons |
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427 | % |
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428 | If you are too busy to read, then you are too busy. |
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429 | % |
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430 | If you can't read this, blame a teacher. |
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431 | % |
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432 | If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire |
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433 | deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading |
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434 | are precisely those that challenge our convictions. |
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435 | % |
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436 | If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. |
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437 | -- Derek Bok, president of Harvard |
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438 | % |
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439 | If you took all the students that felt asleep in class and laid them end to |
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440 | end, they'd be a lot more comfortable. |
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441 | -- "Graffiti in the Big Ten" |
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442 | % |
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443 | "If you understand what you're doing, you're not learning anything." |
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444 | -- A. L. |
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445 | % |
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446 | Ignorance is never out of style. It was in fashion yesterday, it is the |
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447 | rage today, and it will set the pace tomorrow. |
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448 | -- Franklin K. Dane |
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449 | % |
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450 | Ignorance is when you don't know anything and somebody finds it out. |
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451 | % |
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452 | Ignorance must certainly be bliss or there wouldn't be so many people |
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453 | so resolutely pursuing it. |
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454 | % |
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455 | Illiterate? Write today, for free help! |
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456 | % |
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457 | In a forest a fox bumps into a little rabbit, and says, "Hi, |
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458 | Junior, what are you up to?" |
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459 | "I'm writing a dissertation on how rabbits eat foxes," said the |
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460 | rabbit. |
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461 | "Come now, friend rabbit, you know that's impossible! No one |
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462 | will publish such rubbish!" |
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463 | "Well, follow me and I'll show you." |
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464 | They both go into the rabbit's dwelling and after a while the |
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465 | rabbit emerges with a satisfied expression on his face. Comes along a |
||
466 | wolf. "Hello, little buddy, what are we doing these days?" |
||
467 | "I'm writing the 2'nd chapter of my thesis, on how rabbits devour |
||
468 | wolves." |
||
469 | "Are you crazy? Where's your academic honesty?" |
||
470 | "Come with me and I'll show you." |
||
471 | As before, the rabbit comes out with a satisfied look on his face |
||
472 | and a diploma in his paw. Finally, the camera pans into the rabbit's cave |
||
473 | and, as everybody should have guessed by now, we see a mean-looking, huge |
||
474 | lion, sitting, picking his teeth and belching, next to some furry, bloody |
||
475 | remnants of the wolf and the fox. |
||
476 | |||
477 | The moral: It's not the contents of your thesis that are |
||
478 | important -- it's your PhD advisor that really counts. |
||
479 | % |
||
480 | In California, Bill Honig, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, said he |
||
481 | thought the general public should have a voice in defining what an excellent |
||
482 | teacher should know. "I would not leave the definition of math," Dr. Honig |
||
483 | said, "up to the mathematicians." |
||
484 | -- The New York Times, October 22, 1985 |
||
485 | % |
||
486 | Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don't |
||
487 | they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning |
||
488 | anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five |
||
489 | years we would have the smartest race of people on earth. |
||
490 | -- The Best of Will Rogers |
||
491 | % |
||
492 | Iowa State -- the high school after high school! |
||
493 | -- Crow T. Robot |
||
494 | % |
||
495 | It has been said [by Anatole France], "it is not by amusing oneself |
||
496 | that one learns," and, in reply: "it is *____only* by amusing oneself that |
||
497 | one can learn." |
||
498 | -- Edward Kasner and James R. Newman |
||
499 | % |
||
500 | It has long been an article of our folklore that too much knowledge or skill, |
||
501 | or especially consummate expertise, is a bad thing. It dehumanizes those who |
||
502 | achieve it, and makes difficult their commerce with just plain folks, in whom |
||
503 | good old common sense has not been obliterated by mere book learning or fancy |
||
504 | notions. This popular delusion flourishes now more than ever, for we are all |
||
505 | infected with it in the schools, where educationists have elevated it from |
||
506 | folklore to Article of Belief. It enhances their self-esteem and lightens |
||
507 | their labors by providing theoretical justification for deciding that |
||
508 | appreciation, or even simple awareness, is more to be prized than knowledge, |
||
509 | and relating (to self and others), more than skill, in which minimum |
||
510 | competence will be quite enough. |
||
511 | -- The Underground Grammarian |
||
512 | % |
||
513 | It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and |
||
514 | by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate |
||
515 | the habit of thinking about what we are doing. The precise opposite is the |
||
516 | case. Civilization advances by extending the numbers of important operations |
||
517 | which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are |
||
518 | like cavalry charges in battle -- they are strictly limited in number, they |
||
519 | require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. |
||
520 | -- Alfred North Whitehead |
||
521 | % |
||
522 | It's grad exam time... |
||
523 | COMPUTER SCIENCE |
||
524 | Inside your desk you'll find a listing of the DEC/VMS operating |
||
525 | system in IBM 1710 machine code. Show what changes are necessary to convert |
||
526 | this code into a UNIX Berkeley 7 operating system. Prove that these fixes are |
||
527 | bug free and run correctly. You should gain at least 150% efficiency in the |
||
528 | new system. (You should take no more than 10 minutes on this question.) |
||
529 | |||
530 | MATHEMATICS |
||
531 | If X equals PI times R^2, construct a formula showing how long |
||
532 | it would take a fire ant to drill a hole through a dill pickle, if the |
||
533 | length-girth ratio of the ant to the pickle were 98.17:1. |
||
534 | |||
535 | GENERAL KNOWLEDGE |
||
536 | Describe the Universe. Give three examples. |
||
537 | % |
||
538 | It's grad exam time... |
||
539 | MEDICINE |
||
540 | You have been provided with a razor blade, a piece of gauze, and a |
||
541 | bottle of Scotch. Remove your appendix. Do not suture until your work has |
||
542 | been inspected. (You have 15 minutes.) |
||
543 | |||
544 | HISTORY |
||
545 | Describe the history of the papacy from its origins to the present |
||
546 | day, concentrating especially, but not exclusively, on its social, political, |
||
547 | economic, religious and philisophical impact upon Europe, Asia, America, and |
||
548 | Africa. Be brief, concise, and specific. |
||
549 | |||
550 | BIOLOGY |
||
551 | Create life. Estimate the differences in subsequent human culture |
||
552 | if this form of life had been created 500 million years ago or earlier, with |
||
553 | special attention to its probable effect on the English parliamentary system. |
||
554 | % |
||
555 | It's is not, it isn't ain't, and it's it's, not its, if you mean it |
||
556 | is. If you don't, it's its. Then too, it's hers. It isn't her's. It |
||
557 | isn't our's either. It's ours, and likewise yours and theirs. |
||
558 | -- Oxford University Press, Edpress News |
||
559 | % |
||
560 | Joe Cool always spends the first two weeks at college sailing his frisbee. |
||
561 | -- Snoopy |
||
562 | % |
||
563 | Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountainheads. |
||
564 | % |
||
565 | Learning at some schools is like drinking from a firehose. |
||
566 | % |
||
567 | Learning without thought is labor lost; |
||
568 | thought without learning is perilous. |
||
569 | -- Confucius |
||
570 | % |
||
571 | Maybe ain't ain't so correct, but I notice that lots of folks who ain't |
||
572 | using ain't ain't eatin' well. |
||
573 | -- Will Rogers |
||
574 | % |
||
575 | Most seminars have a happy ending. Everyone's glad when they're over. |
||
576 | % |
||
577 | My father, a good man, told me, "Never lose your ignorance; you cannot |
||
578 | replace it." |
||
579 | -- Erich Maria Remarque |
||
580 | % |
||
581 | Never have so many understood so little about so much. |
||
582 | -- James Burke |
||
583 | % |
||
584 | Never let your schooling interfere with your education. |
||
585 | % |
||
586 | No discipline is ever requisite to force attendance upon lectures which are |
||
587 | really worth the attending. |
||
588 | -- Adam Smith, "The Wealth of Nations" |
||
589 | % |
||
590 | No matter who you are, some scholar can show you the great idea you had |
||
591 | was had by someone before you. |
||
592 | % |
||
593 | No wonder you're tired! You understood so much today. |
||
594 | % |
||
595 | Normally our rules are rigid; we tend to discretion, if for no other reason |
||
596 | than self-protection. We never recommend any of our graduates, although we |
||
597 | cheerfully provide information as to those who have failed their courses. |
||
598 | -- Jack Vance, "Freitzke's Turn" |
||
599 | % |
||
600 | Not only is this incomprehensible, but the ink is ugly and the paper |
||
601 | is from the wrong kind of tree. |
||
602 | -- Professor, EECS, George Washington University |
||
603 | |||
604 | I'm looking forward to working with you on this next year. |
||
605 | -- Professor, Harvard, on a senior thesis. |
||
606 | % |
||
607 | `O' LEVEL COUNTER CULTURE |
||
608 | Timewarp allowed: 3 hours. Do not scrawl situationalist graffiti in the |
||
609 | margins or stub your rollups in the inkwells. Orange may be worn. Credit |
||
610 | will be given to candidates who self-actualise. |
||
611 | |||
612 | (1) Compare and contrast Pink Floyd with Black Sabbath and say why |
||
613 | neither has street credibility. |
||
614 | (2) "Even Buddha would have been hard pushed to reach Nirvana squatting |
||
615 | on a juggernaut route." Consider the dialectic of inner truth |
||
616 | and inner city. |
||
617 | (3) Discuss degree of hassle involved in paranoia about being sucked |
||
618 | into a black hole. |
||
619 | (4) "The Egomaniac's Liberation Front were a bunch of revisionist |
||
620 | ripoff merchants." Comment on this insult. |
||
621 | (5) Account for the lack of references to brown rice in Dylan's lyrics. |
||
622 | (6) "Castenada was a bit of a bozo." How far is this a fair summing |
||
623 | up of western dualism? |
||
624 | (7) Hermann Hesse was a Pisces. Discuss. |
||
625 | % |
||
626 | "OK, now let's look at four dimensions on the blackboard." |
||
627 | -- Dr. Joy |
||
628 | % |
||
629 | OK, so you're a Ph.D. Just don't touch anything. |
||
630 | % |
||
631 | One cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs -- but it is amazing |
||
632 | how many eggs one can break without making a decent omelette. |
||
633 | -- Professor Charles P. Issawi |
||
634 | % |
||
635 | Periphrasis is the putting of things in a round-about way. "The cost may be |
||
636 | upwards of a figure rather below 10m#." is a periphrasis for The cost may be |
||
637 | nearly 10m#. "In Paris there reigns a complete absence of really reliable |
||
638 | news" is a periphrasis for There is no reliable news in Paris. "Rarely does |
||
639 | the 'Little Summer' linger until November, but at times its stay has been |
||
640 | prolonged until quite late in the year's penultimate month" contains a |
||
641 | periphrasis for November, and another for lingers. "The answer is in the |
||
642 | negative" is a periphrasis for No. "Was made the recipient of" is a |
||
643 | periphrasis for Was presented with. The periphrasis style is hardly possible |
||
644 | on any considerable scale without much use of abstract nouns such as "basis, |
||
645 | case, character, connexion, dearth, description, duration, framework, lack, |
||
646 | nature, reference, regard, respect". The existence of abstract nouns is a |
||
647 | proof that abstract thought has occurred; abstract thought is a mark of |
||
648 | civilized man; and so it has come about that periphrasis and civilization are |
||
649 | by many held to be inseparable. These good people feel that there is an almost |
||
650 | indecent nakedness, a reversion to barbarism, in saying No news is good news |
||
651 | instead of "The absence of intelligence is an indication of satisfactory |
||
652 | developments." |
||
653 | -- Fowler's English Usage |
||
654 | % |
||
655 | "Plaese porrf raed." |
||
656 | -- Prof. Michael O'Longhlin, S.U.N.Y. Purchase |
||
657 | % |
||
658 | Practice is the best of all instructors. |
||
659 | -- Publilius |
||
660 | % |
||
661 | Princeton's taste is sweet like a strawberry tart. Harvard's is a subtle |
||
662 | taste, like whiskey, coffee, or tobacco. It may even be a bad habit, for |
||
663 | all I know. |
||
664 | -- Prof. J.H. Finley '25 |
||
665 | % |
||
666 | Professor Gorden Newell threw another shutout in last week's Chem Eng. 130 |
||
667 | midterm. Once again a student did not receive a single point on his exam. |
||
668 | Newell has now tossed 5 shutouts this quarter. Newell's earned exam average |
||
669 | has now dropped to a phenomenal 30%. |
||
670 | % |
||
671 | Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of one's own. |
||
672 | % |
||
673 | Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body. |
||
674 | % |
||
675 | Reporter: "How did you like school when you were growing up, Yogi?" |
||
676 | Yogi Berra: "Closed." |
||
677 | % |
||
678 | Rules for Good Grammar #4. |
||
679 | (1) Don't use no double negatives. |
||
680 | (2) Make each pronoun agree with their antecedents. |
||
681 | (3) Join clauses good, like a conjunction should. |
||
682 | (4) About them sentence fragments. |
||
683 | (5) When dangling, watch your participles. |
||
684 | (6) Verbs has got to agree with their subjects. |
||
685 | (7) Just between you and i, case is important. |
||
686 | (8) Don't write run-on sentences when they are hard to read. |
||
687 | (9) Don't use commas, which aren't necessary. |
||
688 | (10) Try to not ever split infinitives. |
||
689 | (11) It is important to use your apostrophe's correctly. |
||
690 | (12) Proofread your writing to see if you any words out. |
||
691 | (13) Correct speling is essential. |
||
692 | (14) A preposition is something you never end a sentence with. |
||
693 | (15) While a transcendant vocabulary is laudable, one must be eternally |
||
694 | careful so that the calculated objective of communication does not |
||
695 | become ensconsed in obscurity. In other words, eschew obfuscation. |
||
696 | % |
||
697 | Smartness runs in my family. When I went to school I was so smart my |
||
698 | teacher was in my class for five years. |
||
699 | -- George Burns |
||
700 | % |
||
701 | Some scholars are like donkeys, they merely carry a lot of books. |
||
702 | -- Folk saying |
||
703 | % |
||
704 | "Speed is subsittute fo accurancy." |
||
705 | % |
||
706 | Spelling is a lossed art. |
||
707 | % |
||
708 | Suddenly, Professor Liebowitz realizes he has come to the seminar |
||
709 | without his duck ... |
||
710 | % |
||
711 | Teachers have class. |
||
712 | % |
||
713 | The 'A' is for content, the 'minus' is for not typing it. Don't ever do |
||
714 | this to my eyes again. |
||
715 | -- Professor Ronald Brady, Philosophy, Ramapo State College |
||
716 | % |
||
717 | The alarm clock that is louder than God's own belongs to the roommate with |
||
718 | the earliest class. |
||
719 | % |
||
720 | The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from |
||
721 | one graveyard to another. |
||
722 | -- J. Frank Dobie, "A Texan in England" |
||
723 | % |
||
724 | The avocation of assessing the failures of better men can be turned |
||
725 | into a comfortable livelihood, providing you back it up with a Ph.D. |
||
726 | -- Nelson Algren, "Writers at Work" |
||
727 | % |
||
728 | "The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff |
||
729 | and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. |
||
730 | You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at |
||
731 | night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, |
||
732 | you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your |
||
733 | honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for |
||
734 | it then -- to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is |
||
735 | the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be |
||
736 | tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning |
||
737 | is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn." |
||
738 | -- T.H. White, "The Once and Future King" |
||
739 | % |
||
740 | The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up |
||
741 | in the morning, and does not stop until you get to school. |
||
742 | % |
||
743 | The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his |
||
744 | intellectual nakedness. |
||
745 | -- Robert M. Hutchins |
||
746 | % |
||
747 | The end of the world will occur at three p.m., this Friday, with |
||
748 | symposium to follow. |
||
749 | % |
||
750 | The future is a race between education and catastrophe. |
||
751 | -- H.G. Wells |
||
752 | % |
||
753 | The important thing is not to stop questioning. |
||
754 | % |
||
755 | The man who has never been flogged has never been taught. |
||
756 | -- Menander |
||
757 | % |
||
758 | The only thing that experience teaches us is that experience teaches us nothing. |
||
759 | -- Andre Maurois (Emile Herzog) |
||
760 | % |
||
761 | The only thing we learn from history is that we do not learn. |
||
762 | -- Earl Warren |
||
763 | |||
764 | That men do not learn very much from history is the most important of all |
||
765 | the lessons that history has to teach. |
||
766 | -- Aldous Huxley |
||
767 | |||
768 | We learn from history that we do not learn from history. |
||
769 | -- Georg Hegel |
||
770 | |||
771 | HISTORY: Papa Hegel he say that all we learn from history is that we learn |
||
772 | nothing from history. I know people who can't even learn from what happened |
||
773 | this morning. Hegel must have been taking the long view. |
||
774 | -- Chad C. Mulligan, "The Hipcrime Vocab" |
||
775 | % |
||
776 | The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. |
||
777 | -- Hegel |
||
778 | |||
779 | I know guys can't learn from yesterday ... Hegel must be taking the long view. |
||
780 | -- John Brunner, "Stand on Zanzibar" |
||
781 | % |
||
782 | The problem with graduate students, in general, is that they have |
||
783 | to sleep every few days. |
||
784 | % |
||
785 | The ratio of literacy to illiteracy is a constant, but nowadays the |
||
786 | illiterates can read. |
||
787 | -- Alberto Moravia |
||
788 | % |
||
789 | The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking. |
||
790 | -- Christopher Morley |
||
791 | % |
||
792 | "The student in question is performing minimally for his peer group and |
||
793 | is an emerging underachiever." |
||
794 | % |
||
795 | The sum of the intelligence of the world is constant. The population is, |
||
796 | of course, growing. |
||
797 | % |
||
798 | The sunlights differ, but there is only one darkness. |
||
799 | -- Ursula K. LeGuin, "The Dispossessed" |
||
800 | % |
||
801 | The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed |
||
802 | ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. |
||
803 | -- F. Scott Fitzgerald |
||
804 | % |
||
805 | The three best things about going to school are June, July, and August. |
||
806 | % |
||
807 | The Tree of Learning bears the noblest fruit, but noble fruit tastes bad. |
||
808 | % |
||
809 | The USA is so enormous, and so numerous are its schools, colleges and religious |
||
810 | seminaries, many devoted to special religious beliefs ranging from the |
||
811 | unorthodox to the dotty, that we can hardly wonder at its yielding a more |
||
812 | bounteous harvest of gobbledegook than the rest of the world put together. |
||
813 | -- Sir Peter Medawar |
||
814 | % |
||
815 | The world is coming to an end! Repent and return those library books! |
||
816 | % |
||
817 | The world is full of people who have never, since childhood, met an |
||
818 | open doorway with an open mind. |
||
819 | -- E.B. White |
||
820 | % |
||
821 | There are no answers, only cross-references. |
||
822 | -- Weiner |
||
823 | % |
||
824 | This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. |
||
825 | -- Winston Churchill |
||
826 | % |
||
827 | Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for |
||
828 | these only gave life, those the art of living well. |
||
829 | -- Aristotle |
||
830 | % |
||
831 | Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. |
||
832 | -- Hector Berlioz |
||
833 | % |
||
834 | To accuse others for one's own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. |
||
835 | To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither |
||
836 | oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete. |
||
837 | -- Epictetus |
||
838 | % |
||
839 | To craunch a marmoset. |
||
840 | -- Pedro Carolino, "English as She is Spoke" |
||
841 | % |
||
842 | To teach is to learn twice. |
||
843 | -- Joseph Joubert |
||
844 | % |
||
845 | To teach is to learn. |
||
846 | % |
||
847 | Try not to have a good time ... This is supposed to be educational. |
||
848 | -- Charles Schulz |
||
849 | % |
||
850 | Trying to get an education here is like trying to get a drink from a fire hose. |
||
851 | % |
||
852 | Universities are places of knowledge. The freshman each bring a little |
||
853 | in with them, and the seniors take none away, so knowledge accumulates. |
||
854 | % |
||
855 | University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. |
||
856 | -- Henry Kissinger |
||
857 | % |
||
858 | Walt: Dad, what's gradual school? |
||
859 | Garp: Gradual school? |
||
860 | Walt: Yeah. Mom says her work's more fun now that she's teaching |
||
861 | gradual school. |
||
862 | Garp: Oh. Well, gradual school is someplace you go and gradually |
||
863 | find out that you don't want to go to school anymore. |
||
864 | -- The World According To Garp |
||
865 | % |
||
866 | "We demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!" |
||
867 | -- Vroomfondel |
||
868 | % |
||
869 | We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary |
||
870 | to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. |
||
871 | Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition |
||
872 | to crave knowledge. |
||
873 | -- George Will |
||
874 | % |
||
875 | We're fantastically incredibly sorry for all these extremely unreasonable |
||
876 | things we did. I can only plead that my simple, barely-sentient friend |
||
877 | and myself are underprivileged, deprived and also college students. |
||
878 | -- Waldo D.R. Dobbs |
||
879 | % |
||
880 | "We're running out of adjectives to describe our situation. We |
||
881 | had crisis, then we went into chaos, and now what do we call this?" said |
||
882 | Nicaraguan economist Francisco Mayorga, who holds a doctorate from Yale. |
||
883 | -- The Washington Post, February, 1988 |
||
884 | |||
885 | The New Yorker's comment: |
||
886 | At Harvard they'd call it a noun. |
||
887 | % |
||
888 | What does education often do? It makes a straight cut ditch of a |
||
889 | free meandering brook. |
||
890 | -- Henry David Thoreau |
||
891 | % |
||
892 | What I Did During My Fall Semester |
||
893 | On the first day of my fall semester, I got up. |
||
894 | Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. |
||
895 | Then I hung out in front of the Dover. |
||
896 | |||
897 | On the second day of my fall semester, I got up. |
||
898 | Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. |
||
899 | Then I hung out in front of the Dover. |
||
900 | |||
901 | On the third day of my fall semester, I got up. |
||
902 | Then I went to the library to find a thesis topic. |
||
903 | I found a thesis topic: |
||
904 | How to keep people from hanging out in front of the Dover. |
||
905 | -- Sister Mary Elephant, "Student Statement for Black Friday" |
||
906 | % |
||
907 | What makes you think graduate school is supposed to be satisfying? |
||
908 | -- Erica Jong, "Fear of Flying" |
||
909 | % |
||
910 | What passes for optimism is most often the effect of an intellectual error. |
||
911 | -- Raymond Aron, "The Opium of the Intellectuals" |
||
912 | % |
||
913 | What we do not understand we do not possess. |
||
914 | -- Goethe |
||
915 | % |
||
916 | What's page one, a preemptive strike? |
||
917 | -- Professor Freund, Communication, Ramapo State College |
||
918 | % |
||
919 | When I was in school, I cheated on my metaphysics exam: I looked into |
||
920 | the soul of the boy sitting next to me. |
||
921 | -- Woody Allen |
||
922 | % |
||
923 | Whenever anyone says, "theoretically," they really mean, "not really." |
||
924 | -- Dave Parnas |
||
925 | % |
||
926 | Where do I find the time for not reading so many books? |
||
927 | -- Karl Kraus |
||
928 | % |
||
929 | "Whom are you?" said he, for he had been to night school. |
||
930 | -- George Ade |
||
931 | % |
||
932 | Wouldn't the sentence "I want to put a hyphen between the words Fish |
||
933 | and And and And and Chips in my Fish-And-Chips sign" have been clearer if |
||
934 | quotation marks had been placed before Fish, and between Fish and and, and |
||
935 | and and And, and And and and, and and and And, and And and and, and and and |
||
936 | Chips, as well as after Chips? |
||
937 | % |
||
938 | You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. |
||
939 | -- H.H. Munro |
||
940 | % |
||
941 | You don't have to think too hard when you talk to teachers. |
||
942 | -- J. D. Salinger |
||
943 | % |
||
944 | You may have heard that a dean is to faculty as a hydrant is to a dog. |
||
945 | -- Alfred Kahn |
||
946 | % |
||
947 | "You should, without hesitation, pound your typewriter into a plowshare, |
||
948 | your paper into fertilizer, and enter agriculture" |
||
949 | -- Business Professor, University of Georgia |
||
950 | % |
||
951 | Your education begins where what is called your education is over. |
||
952 | % |