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
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.
teacher rewards leisure
Leisure is one of the three greatest rewards of being a teacher. It is, unfortunately, the privilege which teachers most often misuse.
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.
wind water stupidity
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.
students like-you subjects
Know the subject; love the subject; like your students; know your students.
book reading airplane
History is a strange experience. The world is quite small now; but history is large and deep. Sometimes you can go much farther by sitting in your own home and reading a book of history, than by getting onto a ship or an airplane and traveling a thousand miles.
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.
wise teacher laughter
The wise teacher knows that 55 minutes of work plus 5 minutes laughter are worth twice as much as 60 minutes of unvaried work.
teacher teaching years
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.
unattainable demand sincerity
The young do not demand omniscience. They know it is unattainable. They do demand sincerity.
teacher school class
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.
teacher littles poverty
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.
language living-things
Language is a living thing