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Quote of the Day: Henry David Thoreau


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2 minutes ago, Road Runner said:

His quote is kind of ironic in that Thoreau suffered from tuberculosis for many years and died young (44). 

He was no genius!

Is it "accumulated" life that creates the abundance - ie wisdom through experience? Or is it an abundance from being young and having a lifetime of life ahead of them?

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13 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

He was no genius!

Is it "accumulated" life that creates the abundance - ie wisdom through experience? Or is it an abundance from being young and having a lifetime of life ahead of them?

Yes. 

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13 hours ago, Inspiration Bot said:

"What is called genius is the abundance of life and health."

View the full article

 

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

He didn't define genius.  He made a quote about what is called genius. Critical reading skills folks.........critical reading skills.

Did you mean to imply that the comments here lack critical reading skill? It’s confusing because your comment is restatement, which is low-level reading skill. 

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1 hour ago, MoseySusan said:

 

Did you mean to imply that the comments here lack critical reading skill? It’s confusing because your comment is restatement, which is low-level reading skill. 

I read it as him stating that what some call genius is a form of grammar common in propaganda and "lawyer speak".  If the statement  simply meant genius, then it world have been fine to say "genius is the abundance of life and health".  My comments on critical reading consist of a lesson in attempting to understand why extra words are placed in statements where they are not needed.  This quote might simply be a mistake, or a bad translation from the original but when you read newspaper articles and books and you encounter this you need to ask why did the author equivocate like that.  What was the purpose if any.  No insult was intended to posters as that would be contrary to the "if you don't have anything nice to say" rule.

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1 hour ago, MoseySusan said:

Did you mean to imply that the comments here lack critical reading skill?

No.  He implied that the commenters above lack critical reading skills.  It is through the application of my critical reading skills that I was able to figure this out.

You’re welcome.

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4 hours ago, Kzoo said:

Henry liked long sentences, eh.  He’d probably do no better then a C in Mrs. Beards English class.

Did Mrs. Beard enforce “No eating in class” as a rule? If so, Henry would not have eaten anything that would “inspire through the palate…” And maybe if he were in this way uninspired, his sentences would have been more in line with Mrs. Beard’s expectations. :)

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4 hours ago, Razors Edge said:

Where's the critical reasoning on your point? :dontknow:  We were reading a quote in English, written in English.  I bet @MoseySusan can make sense of it, though!

It’s as @maddmaxx said. Thoreau wrote a lot of words to explain that the smell of a mountain pasture and taste of fresh berries is a transformative experience. Unlike maxx, I hesitate to call it “propaganda” or judge whether the writer used too many words, but I do believe that Thoreau is making a case, as would a lawyer, in defense of nature. 

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9 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

It’s as @maddmaxx said. Thoreau wrote a lot of words to explain that the smell of a mountain pasture and taste of fresh berries is a transformative experience. Unlike maxx, I hesitate to call it “propaganda” or judge whether the writer used too many words, but I do believe that Thoreau is making a case, as would a lawyer, in defense of nature. 

Misunderstanding.  I did not call Thoreau's quote propaganda.  I commented that his choice of words was a style often used in propaganda and lawyer speak.  I also mentioned critical reading skills.  :nodhead:

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10 hours ago, MoseySusan said:

It’s as @maddmaxx said. Thoreau wrote a lot of words to explain that the smell of a mountain pasture and taste of fresh berries is a transformative experience. Unlike maxx, I hesitate to call it “propaganda” or judge whether the writer used too many words, but I do believe that Thoreau is making a case, as would a lawyer, in defense of nature. 

So, good to know we could get all that from the quote we were given, eh?  It was ridiculous we need the rest of the sentence to put it in context, and should have used our critical reading skills to suss it out instead.

When someone writes, ""What is called genius is the abundance of life and health." (with a period no doubt!), I immediately should have understood that he meant "the smell of a mountain pasture and taste of fresh berries is a transformative experience"!

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29 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

So, good to know we could get all that from the quote we were given, eh?  It was ridiculous we need the rest of the sentence to put it in context, and should have used our critical reading skills to suss it out instead.

When someone writes, ""What is called genius is the abundance of life and health." (with a period no doubt!), I immediately should have understood that he meant "the smell of a mountain pasture and taste of fresh berries is a transformative experience"!

Not so much. 

 

1 hour ago, maddmaxx said:

Misunderstanding.  I did not call Thoreau's quote propaganda.  I commented that his choice of words was a style often used in propaganda and lawyer speak.  I also mentioned critical reading skills.  :nodhead:

Of course. 

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On 3/9/2022 at 6:12 AM, Razors Edge said:

So, good to know we could get all that from the quote we were given, eh?  It was ridiculous we need the rest of the sentence to put it in context, and should have used our critical reading skills to suss it out instead.

@Razors Edge, to be clear, we cannot get to Thoreau's full discourse about the transformative power of time spent outdoors from the IB given quote. As given, it reads more like a definition of genius with the predicate phrase "the abundance of life and health" completing the relative pronoun "What" from the noun clause functioning as the subject of the statement. 

Which is why I wondered aloud what @maddmaxx meant when he implied those who were discussing it as a definition were somehow linked to "critical reading skills." It reads like a definition.

I'm sorry to have conflated the IB quote with the full context you'd posted. I thought we'd moved on to the full context instead of discussing the IB quote.

As for...

On 3/9/2022 at 5:15 AM, maddmaxx said:

Misunderstanding.  I did not call Thoreau's quote propaganda.  I commented that his choice of words was a style often used in propaganda and lawyer speak.  I also mentioned critical reading skills.  :nodhead:

No misunderstanding. Allow me to explain:

On 3/8/2022 at 2:01 PM, maddmaxx said:

read it as him stating that what some call genius is a form of grammar common in propaganda and "lawyer speak".  If the statement  simply meant genius, then it world have been fine to say "genius is the abundance of life and health". 

The part in bold is your "link." It's a specialized use of words to connect the disadvantage to the claim by increments. Hold onto that thought. The rest of the statement is your claim, but what makes your claim make sense is your paradigm.

On 3/8/2022 at 2:01 PM, maddmaxx said:

My comments on critical reading consist of a lesson in attempting to understand why extra words are placed in statements where they are not needed.

So, having determined that extra, unneeded words are the scale by which we assess rhetoric, your argument flows thusly:

Extra words are not needed; lawyers and propagandists use extra words; Thoreau uses extra words in the given IB quote; we should critique the use of extra words; and then you reject that the IB quote is a definition, naming it equivocation. 

I stand by the initial comments in this thread that the IB quote reads like a definition. Only after adding the context later in the thread do we understand the writer's argument that time spent in nature fills the senses and expands the mind to a place we call genius. 

On 3/9/2022 at 5:15 AM, maddmaxx said:

I did not call Thoreau's quote propaganda.  I commented that his choice of words was a style often used in propaganda and lawyer speak.

It's the link that connects your paradigm (too many words) to your claim that the writer equivocates, which you imply is harmful somehow. According to your own paradigm, why would you even bring it up if it has no role to play in the discourse? 

So, there's that.

I'm retired. And on vacation as of...now.

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