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William Deresiewicz

William Deresiewicz Quotes

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Famous William Deresiewicz Quotes

“[...] art instills the fundamental moral lesson: That you aren't the center of the universe. That others weren't created for your benefit. That they are just as real as you, with equal claimes to dignity and understanding.”

ArtUnderstandingCompassionEmpathyDignityMoralsLife Lesson
Book:Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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“The purpose of college, to put this all another way, is to turn adolescents into adults. You needn't go to school for that, but if you're going to be there anyway, then that's the most important thing to get accomplished. That is the true education: accept no substitutes. The idea that we should take the first four years of young adulthood and devote them to career preparation alone, neglecting every other part of life, is nothing short of an obscenity. If that's what people had you do, then you were robbed. And if you find yourself to be the same person at the end of college as you were at the beginning - the same beliefs, the same values, the same desires, the same goals for the same reasons - then you did it wrong. Go back and do it again.”

ValuesChangeEducationLearningCollegeAdultsGoalsMoralsBeliefsDesiresCareerAdolescents
Book:Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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“But the compulsive overachievement of today's elite college students - the sense that they need to keep running as fast as they can - is not the only thing that keeps them from forming the deeper relationships that might relieve their anguish. Something more insidious is operating, too: a resistance to vulnerability, a fear of looking like the only one who isn't capable of handling the pressure. These are young people who have always succeeded at everything, in part by projecting the confidence that they always will. Now, as they get to college, the stakes are higher and the competition fiercer. Everybody thinks that they are the only one who's suffering, so nobody says anything, so everybody suffers. Everyone feels like a fraud; everybody thinks that everybody else is smarter than they are.”

SuccessStudentsCollegeConfidenceVulnerabilityFraudSmartsOverachievement
Book:Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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“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.”

WealthEducationGenerationsDebtTaxationStudent Loans
Book:Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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“There's no doubt about it: fun people are fun. But I finally learned that there is something more important, in the people you know, than whether they are fun. Thinking about those friends who had given me so much pleasure but who had also caused me so much pain, thinking about that bright, cruel world to which they'd introduced me, I saw that there's a better way to value people. Not as fun or not fun, or stylish or not stylish, but as warm or cold, generous or selfish. People who think about others and people who don't. People who know how to listen, and people who only know how to talk.”

PeopleThinkingKnowsWorldWayImportantPainValuesGivenFunPleasureKnow HowDoubtSawsColdWarmSelfishGenerousNo DoubtBetter WaysStylishCruel WorldSelfish People
Book:A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
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“Hence the vogue for double majors. It isn’t enough anymore to take a bunch of electives in addition to your primary focus, to roam freely across the academic fields, making serendipitous connections and discoveries, the way that American higher education was designed (uniquely, among the world’s systems) to allow you to do.”

WorldWayEnoughFocusFieldsHigherMajorsDiscoveryConnectionsBunchPrimariesAcademicHigher EducationVogue
Book:Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life
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“People’s stories are the most personal thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them.”

PeopleImportantStoriesCan DoAttentionImportant ThingsPay AttentionPersonal Things
Book:A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter
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“Don't play it safe. Resist the seductions of the cowardly values our society has come to prize so highly: comfort, convenience, security, predictability, control. These, too, are nets. Above all, resist the fear of failure. Yes, you will make mistakes. But they will be your mistakes, not someone else's. And you will survive them, and you will know yourself better for having made them, and you will be a fuller and a stronger person.”

KnowsPersonsMadePlayValuesMistakeSecurityComfortSafeStrongerMaking MistakesOur SocietyPrizeSeductionKnow YourselfConvenienceFear Of FailureCowardlyPredictabilityStronger Person
Author:William Deresiewicz
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