Gilbert Highet
Gilbert Highet
Gilbert Arthur Highetwas a Scottish-American classicist, academic, writer, intellectual, critic and literary historian...
NationalityScottish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth22 June 1906
pieces branches bud
Language is a living thing. We can feel it changing. Parts of it become old: they drop off and are forgotten. New pieces bud out, spread into leaves, and become big branches, proliferating.
teacher nice years
Many of the snarly bad-tempered teachers whom we remember with hatred were really nice people soured by years of anxiety and penny-pinching.
may enjoy
Most Americans do not like poetry. We may respect it, but we do not enjoy it.
inspirational people done
People learn more quickly by doing something or seeing something done.
intimate-conversation dancing needs
Poetry is halfway between prose and music: it is sometimes like an intimate conversation, in words and phrases which need not be fully uttered, and sometimes like dancing and wordless music.
teacher determined good-teacher
A good teacher is a determined person
political support promise
What is politics but persuading the public to vote for this and support that and endure these for the promise of those?
hate school boys
The best school in the world will scarcely save a boy who hates the school and the purpose it serves and the society that created it.
reading light important
The Sonnets of Shakespeare have the fascination of an autobiography, without its clarity. It is like reading an important document in a cave by the light of matches which keep blowing out.
effort mind growing
The mind never need stop growing. Indeed, one of the few experiences which never pall is the experience of watching one's own mind and how it produces new interests, responds to new stimuli, and develops new thoughts, apparently without effort and almost independently of one's own conscious control.
real men soul
The real duty of man is not to extend his power or multiply his wealth beyond his needs, but to enrich and enjoy his imperishable possession: his soul.
children teaching parent
The relation between parents and children is essentially based on teaching.
teacher teaching believe
A teacher must believe in the value and interest of his subject as a doctor believes in health.
teaching effort might
Bad teaching wastes a great deal of effort, and spoils many lives which might have been full of energy and happiness.