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Gilbert Highet Quotes - Page 2

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The art of invective resembles the art of boxing. Very few fights are won with the straight left. It is too obvious, and it can betoo easily countered. The best punches, like the best pieces of invective in this style,

The art of invective resembles the art of boxing. Very few fights are won with the straight left. It is too obvious, and it can betoo easily countered. The best punches, like the best pieces of invective in this style, are either short-arm jabs, unexpectedly rapid and deadly; or else one-two blows, where you prepare your opponent with the first hit, and then, as his face comes forward, connect with your other fist: one, two. Both are effective; but they can be administered only by a real artist, with a real wish to knock his enemy out.

Gilbert Highet
Art, Real, Fighting

Language is a living thing

Gilbert Highet
Language, Living Things

At certain times and in certain schools it is orthodox to be a rebel; and in general it is a very poor class that does not contain at least three pupils who can be counted on to oppose the teachers authority and loudly and persistently to question everything he says.

Gilbert Highet
Teacher, School, Class
GILBERT HIGHET (1950). “THE ART OF TEACHING”

Leisure is one of the three greatest rewards of being a teacher. It is, unfortunately, the privilege which teachers most often misuse.

Gilbert Highet
Teacher, Three, Rewards
GILBERT HIGHET (1950). “THE ART OF TEACHING”

Most Americans do not like poetry. We may respect it, but we do not enjoy it.

Gilbert Highet
May, Enjoy

A period of high civilization is one in which thoughts fly freely from mind to mind, from one country to another-yes, from the past into the present.

Gilbert Highet
Country, Past, Civilization
Gilbert Highet (1954). “The migration of ideas: three lectures delivered on the North Foundation at Franklin and Marshall College on 18 and 19 March 1954”

Nobody has ever thought himself to death. The chief danger confronting us is not age. It is laziness, sloth, routine, stupidity, - forcing their way in like wind through the shutters, seeping into the cellar like swamp water.

Gilbert Highet
Wind, Water, Stupidity
Gilbert Highet (1976). “The Immortal Profession: The Joys of Teaching and Learning”, Random House Incorporated

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.

Gilbert Highet
Writing, Bud, Pieces

Many of the snarly bad-tempered teachers whom we remember with hatred were really nice people soured by years of anxiety and penny-pinching.

Gilbert Highet
Teacher, Nice, Years
GILBERT HIGHET (1950). “THE ART OF TEACHING”

The teacher's chief difficulty is poverty. He (or she) belongs to a badly paid profession. He cannot dress and live like a workman, but he is sometimes paid as little as an unskilled laborer.

Gilbert Highet
Teacher, Dresses, Littles
GILBERT HIGHET (1950). “THE ART OF TEACHING”

You [the teacher] do not merely insert a lot of facts, if you teach them [the students] properly. It is not like injecting 500 cc. of serum, or administering a year's dose of vitamins.

Gilbert Highet
Teacher, Teaching, Years
"Art of Teaching".

Like all great teachers he knew that a picture is worth a thousand words and that people learn most quickly by doing something or seeing something done.

Gilbert Highet
Inspirational, Education, Teacher
"The Art of Teaching".

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