WIST Quotations

Russell, Bertrand -- Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 5 “Play and Fancy” (1926)

Dave — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 16:26:43 +0000

It is a dangerous error to confound truth with matter-of-fact. Our life is governed not only by facts, but by hopes; the kind of truthfulness which sees nothing but facts is a prison for the human spirit. Dreams are only to be condemned when they are a lazy substitute for an effort to change reality; when they are an incentive, they are fulfilling a vital purpose in the incarnation of human ideals. To kill fancy in childhood is to make a slave to what exists, a creature tethered to earth and therefore unable to create heaven.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 5 “Play and Fancy” (1926)

On children's literature.

Taylor, Barbara Brown -- Learning to Walk in the Dark, ch. 1 (2014)

Dave — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 17:59:14 +0000

At home we read Pinocchio instead. We read Black Beauty, Doctor Dolittle, Little Women, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. What I learned about darkness from stories, I learned from books like these — and also from the unedited works of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen.
According to a recent article in the New York Times, few parents expose their children to those works in the original these days, and some of their reasons make sense. Who wants children growing up with the idea that stepmothers are wicked, ugly people are evil, women can get by on their beauty, and princesses are all white? At the same time, I worry about children who grow up thinking that every story has a happy ending and no one gets permanently hurt along the way.

Barbara Brown Taylor (b. 1951) American minister, academic, author
Learning to Walk in the Dark, ch. 1 (2014)

McLaughlin, Mignon -- The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 2 (1963)

Dave — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 21:40:43 +0000

We tell our children things which we know are not so, but which we wish were so.

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist and author
The Neurotic’s Notebook, ch. 2 (1963)

Baum, L. Frank -- The Lost Princess of Oz, Introduction (1917)

Dave — Thu, 04 Jul 2024 17:07:36 +0000

Some of my youthful readers are developing wonderful imaginations. This pleases me. Imagination has brought mankind through the Dark Ages to its present state of civilization. Imagination led Columbus to discover America. Imagination led Franklin to discover electricity. Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities. So I believe that dreams — day dreams, you know, with your eyes wide open and your brain machinery whizzing — are likely to lead to the betterment of the world. The imaginative child will become the imaginative man or woman most apt to create, to invent, and therefore to foster civilization. A prominent educator tells me that fairy tales are of untold value in developing imagination in the young. I believe it.

L. Frank Baum (1856–1919) American author [Lyman Frank Baum]
The Lost Princess of Oz, Introduction (1917)

Pratchett, Terry -- Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)

Dave — Tue, 22 Dec 2020 20:49:34 +0000

“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need … fantasies to make life bearable.”
Really? As if it was some kind of pink pill? No. Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little –”
Yes. As practice. You have to start out learning to believe the little lies.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
Yes. Justice. Mercy. Duty. That sort of thing.
“They’re not the same at all!”
You think so? Then take the universe and grind it down to the finest powder and sieve it through the finest sieve and then show me one atom of justice, one molecule of mercy. And yet — Death waved a hand. And yet you act as if there is some ideal order in the world. As if there is some … some rightness in the universe by which it may be judged.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point –”
My point exactly.

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Discworld No. 20, Hogfather (1996)