Quotes

One assignment my seniors are working on is analyzing a list of quotes from Oscar Wilde. Some come from the novel we’re reading (The Picture of Dorian Gray) and others come from his life and other works.

Here are my favorites --


“I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.”

-- For some reason, this quote comes to mind whenever I watch the news.

“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information.”

-- Wilde would have been delighted with our society then. It seems to me that there is precious little else in our society today other than useless information. (And why am I hearing Andy Rooney’s voice in the back of my head right now? Serves me right for downloading his concluding pieces from 60 Minutes to my ipod last week.) I mean how can one devote time to watching (or reading about it anyway) what happens on the red carpet at some awards ceremony? Or spend a weekend watching a marathon of reality TV? I think of this whenever I see the commercials for the new series “The Real Housewives of Orange County.” Who cares. Now I’m not above this. I spend hours upon hours reading my pre-season football magazines and visiting espn.com. The useless information has gotten me too.

“Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.”

-- This reminds me of those rare propaganda emails glorifying the slaughter in Iraq. The most disturbing was a video depicting our military dispatching a terrorist on the ground via a helicopter. The terrorist or insurgent was reduced to a glowing puddle seen on the infrared camera. This kind of patriotism is pure idiocy to me. (See my Einstein quote below too).

“We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.”

-- Now this one hits close to home. Recently, we moved Gail out of her trailer home. Before that we had to take inventory of all the stuff in my father’s sheds on the farm. In both cases, I was amazed at all of the crap one can accumulate over the years. In Gail’s case, she took exception to use treating her possessions as junk. They might seem that way to us, but, we should have remembered, they were anything but that to her. The same was true with all my father’s crap. He had countless cases of used oil containers and filters. He stored everything! Whatever Mom threw out, he must have stashed away in his sheds. Again, I thought this was all junk, but – for whatever reason – they were treasures to Dad. Which makes me wonder – what will my children think of all the stuff I collect and horde?

“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”
-- Truer words were never spoken about education. It’s funny how little has changed in over a century.

“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.”

-- I like this. Probably because I spend too much of my time trying to get kids to remember things rather than getting them to grow. When I read a poem and am shaken to my core, how can I possibly pass that along to my students? I can try to re-create my reaction. I can model it for them, but how do I possibly transfer my reaction to them? I guess my only hope is to offer them a wide variety of chances to have their own reaction and experience to a piece of literature. Then I try to get the hell out of the way so they can do the learning on their own without me mouthing it up too much.

“Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

-- If I ever presented to teachers at a beginning of the year in-service, I would begin with this quote. I would address it to the morons (usually coaches and veteran teachers) sitting in back gabbing all the time or nodding off.

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”

-- I imagine this is true for both my students and me.

“These days man knows the price of everything, but the value of nothing.”

-- I think again of all the crap Gail and Dad compiled. Most of it was not worth much. But emotionally could one even put a value on it? Just today my dear friend Sharon was showing off the quilts she had made from shirts that had belonged to her late husband, Don. She is going to give them as Christmas presents. When I saw them, I could only think about how I wish we had done that with all of Dad’s old flannel shirts. Instead we donated them to the Salvation Army, which is fine. But what a great way to preserve a piece of Dad! Really, the shirts were worth pennies. But the memories stored in the colors and textures of that fabric was priceless.