“The best thing…is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds.
There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the thing for you.”
The Once and Future King
T. H. White
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De-lurking to say:
I love that quotation too.
I have it at the front of a commonplace book I’ve been keeping since my early teens.
Especially like where it says (to paraphrase) once you know philosophy and rhetoric and all the academic stuff and think you’re “done”, you can turn to beekeeping and carpentry and textiles and keep going forever.
That’s one of the nice things about knitting - always something else to learn :-)
Nice needles, btw.
Cheers!
It’s the first time I have read that quote and I love it!
Den -
I ran across this quote many, many years ago when a close friend (and artist) was practicing her calligraphy. This passage was what she was using to practice with.
It came as a bit of a shock because it quite succintly and accurately described something I was already aware of but couldn’t have come within a mile of articulating.
I have kept it around ever since - fancy and framed on a wall, stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet, jotted onto a bookmark…
The needles are old (black walnut) and new (birch) style Brittany woods. The fact is I seldom use them, but they are beautiful.
Lynne - It’s a winner, for sure! And a few years ago, I even got around to reading the rest of the book as well :)
i love that quote! thanks so much for sharing!
Opal -
It is one of the two things I always try to remind myself of when I am unhappy, frustrated or feeling out of control. The other is -
“Fear is the mind killer”
Dune
Frank Herbert
I like the Dune quote too!
One of “my” other ones, which I got from L.M Montgomery’s The Blue Castle, has a similar slant to it:
Fear is the root of all evil.
Terrific quote.
Den -
I’ll have to be on the lookout for that book! Good quote :)
Donnac -
The concept has stood me in good stead for a lot of years. I have gotten quite addicted to that lightbulg-going-on-over-my-head feeling when something finally comes clear. There’s nothing like it!
