“[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.”
“[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.”
William Deresiewicz
“No real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.”
William Deresiewicz“[Jane] Austen was not a novelist for nothing: she knew that our stories are what make us human, and that listening to someone else's stories -- entering into their feelings, validating their experiences -- is the highest way of acknowledging their humanity, the sweetest form of usefulness.”
William Deresiewicz“We can start all the organic farms we want, but we can't stop congress from declaring pizza sauce a vegetable.”
William Deresiewicz“The American essayist William Deresiewicz wrote that "no real excellence, personal or social, artistic, philosophical, scientific, or moral, can arise without solitude.”
Michael Finkel, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit“Fortunately, our colleges and universities are fully cognizant of the problems I have been delineating and take concerted action to address them. Curricula are designed to give coherence to the educational experience and to challenge students to develop a strong degree of moral awareness. Professors, deeply involved with the enterprise of undergraduate instruction, are committed to their students' intellectual growth and insist on maintaining the highest standards of academic rigor. Career services keep themselves informed about the broad range of postgraduate options and make a point of steering students away from conventional choices. A policy of noncooperation with U.S. News has taken hold, depriving the magazine of the data requisite to calculate its rankings. Rather than squandering money on luxurious amenities and exorbitant administrative salaries, schools have rededicated themselves to their core missions of teaching and the liberal arts. I'm kidding, of course.”
William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life“We inherited a strong and flourishing country, and instead of making the investments - that is, the sacrifices - to maintain it, we chose to suck it dry and stick our children with the bill. If you want to see who is to blame for student debt, just look in the mirror. And if parents find themselves supporting kids beyond their college years, that is only, in the aggregate, a form of compensatory justice: the intergenerational transfer of wealth that should have been effected through taxation.”
William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life“Depression means self-loathing, self-disgust, and the kind of emotional numbness that feels like psychic death.”
William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life“Practical utility, however, is not the ultimate purpose of a liberal arts education. Its ultimate purpose is to help you learn to reflect in the widest and deepest sense, beyond the requirements of work and career: for the sake of citizenship, for the sake of living well with others, above all, for the sake of building a self that is strong and creative and free.”
William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful LifeAll in One Creative & Marketing Platform to tell stories at scale
