Celtic Homeschool - Quotes

REMEMBERING AND DOING, VERSUS READING AND WRITING

"... you who are the father of letters, have been led by your affection to ascribe to them a power the opposite of that which they really possess.  For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who learn to use it, because they will not practise their memory.  Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them.  You have invented an elixir not of memory, but of reminding; and you offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction and will therefore seem to know many things, when they are for the most part ignorant and hard to get along with, since they are not wise, but only appear wise."

Quoted in "Hamlet's Mill" by Giorio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend, 1969, NonPareil Books,  p. 348

Of course, feel free to memorize the quotes, tell stories about them, make up poems or songs...