"At first, students tend to freeze at the first effort. The breakthrough comes when they realize that they can make it better - can identify what their purposes were and realize better ways to achieve those purposes."

--

Source : "An Interview with M. H. Abrams by Sharon Hamilton". People's Education, March 10, 2007.

M. H. Abrams

#Teaching Quotes #Effort Quotes #Purpose Quotes

“I like all those painters who loved and had a strong feeling for nature.”
“All of the American's foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings.”
“With kids, they don't do what you want them to do when you want them to do it. Organizations don't necessarily, either. You've got to listen. You've got to learn how to influence.”
“Hateful, blasphemous, prejudiced, vulgar, rude, or ignorant remarks are the music of a free society, and the relentless patter of idiots is how we know we're in one. When all the words in our public conversation are fair, good, and true, it's time to make a run for the fence.”
“I think Formula E truly has the potential to become the future of motorsport. Formula One is the past.”
“When the soul is naughted and transformed, then of herself she neither works nor speaks nor wills, nor feels nor hears nor understands; neither has she of herself the feeling of outward or inward, where she may move. And in all things it is God who rules and guides her, without the meditation of any creature.... And she is so full of peace that thought she pressed her flesh, her nerves, her bones, no other thing come forth from them than peace.”
“There is no such thing as a perfect person in this world. We all must become the main characters or the stars of our lives. We are all different and start differently. But from whatever is our circumstances, it is very important that we find the opportunities to try out what we want to do.”
“France cannot be destroyed. She is an old country who, despite her misfortunes, has, and always will have, thanks to her past, a tremendous prestige in the world, whatever the fate inflicted upon her.”

You may also like:

David Daiches
Historian
Harold Bloom
Literary critic
Jonathan Culler
Northrop Frye
Literary critic
Roz Chast
Cartoonist
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Poet
Stephen Greenblatt
Literary critic
Thomas Malory
Writer
William Hazlitt
Writer