Lectures Quotes

“Everyone’s a believer when things are going fine. The real faith is when one becomes patient with tribulations.”
― Hamza Yusuf

“We are now ready to tackle Dickens. We are now ready to embrace Dickens. We are now ready to bask in Dickens. In our dealings with Jane Austen we had to make a certain effort to join the ladies in the drawing room. In the case of Dickens we remain at table with our tawny port. With Dickens we expand. It seems to me that Jane Austen's fiction had been a charming re-arrangement of old-fashioned values. In the case of Dickens, the values are new. Modern authors still get drunk on his vintage. Here, there is no problem of approach as with Austen, no courtship, no dallying. We just surrender ourselves to Dickens' voice--that is all. If it were possible I would like to devote fifty minutes of every class meeting to mute meditation, concentration, and admiration of Dickens. However my job is to direct and rationalize those meditations, that admiration. All we have to do when reading Bleak House is to relax and let our spines take over. Although we read with our minds, the seat of artistic delight is between the shoulder-blades. That little shiver behind is quite certainly the highest form of emotion that humanity has attained when evolving pure art and pure science. Let us worship the spine and its tingle. Let us be proud of being vertebrates, for we are vertebrates tipped at the head with a divine flame. The brain only continues the spine, the wick really runs through the whole length of the candle. If we are not capable of enjoying that shiver, if we cannot enjoy literature, then let us give up the whole thing and concentrate on our comics, our videos, our books-of-the-week. But I think Dickens will prove stronger.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature

“What do you have to say for yourself, boy?" Cgerise
"Sorry, Ma, I'm a sexy demon magnet?" Nick
"Cherise!" Bubba
"Don't you even take that tone with me, Mr. Triple-Threat-I-don't-have-to-listen-to-anyone-because-I'm-the-size-of-a-tabk. You're in the doghouse, buster. You might as well pack a bag 'cause you're going to be in there so long your name's going to be engraved on the mailbox." Cherise
"Ah, what'd I do, cher?" Bubba
"You dragged my baby into danger, and you-- Are you one of them?" Cherise
"I'm going with whatever answer doesn't get me swatted with that bat." Savitar
"Cherise, calm down. What are you doing here?" Bubba
"What do you think? I'm protecting my boys. Both of you ... Because Mark values his own life and inparticular his male body parts, he called me after he got off the phone with you to tell me what the two of you were doing. You didn't honestly believe that I've been ignorant of what you and Mark do at night all these years? Did you?" Cherise
"Um, yeah." Bubba
"Well then you're a fool,Michael Burdette. And I'm not." Cherise”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, Illusion

“Well in two months, it'd be sunbathing time. That made me smile. I enjoyed lying in the sun in a little bikini, timing myself carefully so I didn't burn. I loved the smell of coconut oil. And I don't want to hear any lectures about how bad tanning is for you. That's my vice. Everybody gets one.”
― Charlaine Harris, Dead as a Doornail

“At present, a good many men engaged in scientific pursuits, and who have signally failed in gaining recognition among their fellows, are endeavoring to make reputations among the churches by delivering weak and vapid lectures upon the 'harmony of Genesis and Geology.' Like all hypocrites, these men overstate the case to such a degree, and so turn and pervert facts and words that they succeed only in gaining the applause of other hypocrites like themselves. Among the great scientists they are regarded as generals regard sutlers who trade with both armies.

Surely the time must come when the wealth of the world will not be wasted in the propagation of ignorant creeds and miraculous mistakes. The time must come when churches and cathedrals will be dedicated to the use of man; when minister and priest will deem the discoveries of the living of more importance than the errors of the dead; when the truths of Nature will outrank the 'sacred' falsehoods of the past, and when a single fact will outweigh all the miracles of Holy Writ.

Who can over estimate the progress of the world if all the money wasted in superstition could be used to enlighten, elevate and civilize mankind?

When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.”
― Robert G. Ingersoll, Some Mistakes of Moses

“We must never forget our teachers, our lecturers and our mentors. In their individual capacities have contributed to our academic, professional and personal development.”
― Lailah Gifty Akita, Pearls of Wisdom: Great mind

“The commonest error of the gifted scholar, inexperienced in teaching, is to expect pupils to know what they have been told. But telling is not teaching. The expression of facts that are in one's mind is a natural impulse when one wishes others to know these facts, just as to cuddle and pat a sick child is a natural impulse. But telling a fact to a child may not cure his ignorance of it any more than patting him will cure his scarlet fever. (p. 61)”
― Edward Lee Thorndike, Education, a First Book

“Most students were either denying the existence of lectures, lazing up in bed, or in the case of the more studious, already up and learning, which to be honest would usually be me.”
― Emily Williams, Letters to Eloise

“[Benjamin Peirce's] lectures were not easy to follow. They were never carefully prepared. The work with which he rapidly covered the blackboard was very illegible, marred with frequent erasures, and not infrequent mistakes (he worked too fast for accuracy). He was always ready to digress from the straight path and explore some sidetrack that had suddenly attracted his attention, but which was likely to have led nowhere when the college bell announced the close of the hour and we filed out, leaving him abstractedly staring at his work, still with chalk and eraser in his hands, entirely oblivious of his departing class.”
― William Elwood Byerly

“..."Един велик дух никога не е напълно ясен." Това е вярно, и точно така е с едно велико чувство - то никога не е съвсем ясно. Човек се наслаждава на едно истинско чувство, когато то е мъничко съмнително, а пък мисъл, в която няма поне малко противоречие, не е убедителна.”
― C.G. Jung, За основите на аналитичната психология

“Most lecture-based courses contribute nothing to real learning. Consequential and retained learning comes from applying knowledge to new situations or problems, research on questions and issues that students consider important, peer interaction, activities, and projects. Experiences, rather than short-term memorization, help students develop the skills and motivation that transforms lives." [p. 7-8]”
― Tony Wagner, Most Likely to Succeed: Preparing Our Kids for the Innovation Era

“Bien lire l’univers, c’est bien lire la vie.”
― Victor Hugo

“Since the dawn of humanity, stories have allowed each of us to be many.”
― Neil Gaiman

“If it is traumatising to follow the same lecture every week, then what makes it desirable to sit in the same place daily?”
― Mwanandeke Kindembo, Treatise Upon The Misconceptions of Narcissism

“To escape from such thoughts I would go back to my drawing board and plunge into the making of pictures. And now I found a new means of escape-lectures and libraries. Both enabled me to get away for a little while from my discontented thoughts because of loss of freedom through wedlock. Lately I realized anew that my education was inadequate. So many questions came up that I couldn't answer, and I needed to fortify myself with such answers. By listening to the lectures and reading a wide variety of books I nursed the seed which had been planted in my mind by Keir Hardie's speech in Denver, and by Myron Reed's discussions of the human struggle there.”
― Art Young, Art Young: His Life and Times

“I always love to start my class or discussion with generated questions! When an expectation is known, meeting needs becomes easier.”
― Daniel ANIKOR