“I don’t think it would have got me quite so down if just once in a while – just once in a while – there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t its just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word ‘wisdom’ mentioned!”
- Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth,” and so it goes away. Puzzling.
- Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:, by Robert Persig
He thought of all the living species that train their young in the art of survival, the cats who teach their kittens to hunt, the birds who spend such strident effort on teaching their fledglings to fly – yet man, whose tool of survival is the mind, does not merely fail to teach a child to think, but devotes the child’s education to the purpose of destroying his brain, of convincing him that thought is futile and evil, before he has started to think.
From the first catch-phrases flung at a child to the last, it is like a series of shocks to freeze his motor, to undercut the power of his consciousness. “Don’t ask so many questions, children should be seen and not heard!” – “Who are you to think? It’s so, because I say so!” – “Don’t argue, obey!” – “Don’t try to understand, believe!” – “Don’t rebel, adjust!” – “Don’t stand out, belong!” – “Don’t struggle, compromise!” – “Who are you to know? Your parents know best!” – “Who are you to know? Society knows best!” “Who are you to know? The bureaucrats know best!” – “Who are you to object? All values are relative!”
-Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
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