Thursday, June 18, 2009

Cool Quote

I found this awesome quote today. I believe it, but I certainly don't live up to it. Why don't we teach this stuff in our government schools?

"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently and die gallantly. Specialization is for insects!" -- Robert A. Heinlein

My education was more like: "I'm learning more and more about less and less until eventually I'll know everything about nothing!"

After four kids, I got the "changing a diaper" thing down!

3 comments:

S. Harlan Cone said...

Heinlein was an interesting guy. I doubt you'd agree much with his politics or social agenda, but he was one of the Sci-Fi greats. His books are generally far superior to his movies, especially STARSHIP TROOPERS.

Mark Mahaffey said...

One of the joys of mapmaking is getting to remain at least SOMETHING of a generalist... at least changing topics fairly rapidly. Trebek called it "being curious about things that don't interest you." The academic world must be brutal for such though, I went to that Calvin conference last week, and whilst wonderful, it was at times esoteric to the point of...

Mark Mahaffey said...

Started a new biography of one of the great generalists, Champlain: http://www.amazon.com/Champlains-Dream-David-Hackett-Fischer/dp/1416593322 Worth checking out...