Rote Quotes

Keep repeating the exercise of grief and it loses meaning, it becomes rote, false, a game of self-delusion, self-indulgence. A way of never getting over anything, ever. ~ Steven Erikson

I finally understood that I didn't lack pen and paper but my own
memorizing mind. It had been given away with a hundred poems, called
rote learning, old-fashioned, backward, an enemy of creative thinking,
a great human gift disowned. ~ Grace Paley

The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave - caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition - cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner. ~ Saint Teresa Of Avila

When we go to school, very often, we don't see that passion because the way school is run, the disciplinary nature of it and the rote learning are so, sort of, offensive actually, that children sort of lose that passion more often than not. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

There's a need to understand, but that doesn't require knowledge. The God hypothesis, for example, allows you to have an unparalleled understanding of absolutely everything while knowing absolutely nothing ... Give a man a highly simplified model of the world and interpret every event on the basis of this simple model. This approach requires no knowledge. A few rote formulas, plus some so-called intuition, some so-called practical acumen, and some so-called common sense. ~ Arkady Strugatsky

In public at least, Roberts himself purports to have a different view of the Court than his conservative sponsors. "Judges are like umpires," he said at his confirmation hearing. "Umpires don't make the rules; they apply them." Elsewhere, Roberts has often said, "Judges are not politicians." None of this is true. Supreme Court justices are nothing at all like baseball umpires. It is folly to pretend that the awesome work of interpreting the Constitution, and thus defining the rights and obligations of American citizenship, is akin to performing the rote […] task of calling balls and strikes. When it comes to the core of the Court's work, determining the contemporary meaning of the Constitution, it is ideology, not craft or skill, that controls the outcome of cases. ~ Jeffrey Toobin

The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs. ~ David Guterson

watching TV and playing solitaire is not a proper life. It's not living. It's killing time, and that's hardly the same. You start asking yourself too many questions when your day is reduced to these rote activities that accomplish nothing. You start to wonder ~ Catherine Ryan Hyde

I knew all of the childhood prayers I uttered on my knees at the side of my bed. Many years of Sunday-school attendance had etched certain Psalms and rote prayers into the fibers of my brain. However, somewhere deep inside of me, I had the secret belief that I did not know how to pray, and that frightened me. ~ Iyanla Vanzant

Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. ~ Frances Wright

I think you're a better comedian when you're in the moment and you're kind of reacting to what's happening like a real person instead of doing rote memorization. ~ Scott Aukerman

In a lot of teen movies nowadays, you just get the rote six stereotypes like the jock, the cool guy, the nerd, the hot girl, the girl who cares, and the girl who has glasses and is supposed to be ugly but is actually beautiful. ~ Penn Dayton Badgley

The brain doesn't learn information by rote and then save it somewhere. Instead, it organises knowledge. ~ Henning Beck

In a badly designed book, the letters mill and stand like starving horses in a field. In a book designed by rote, they sit like stale bread and mutton on the page. In a well-made book, where designer, compositor and printer have all done their jobs, no matter how many thousands of lines and pages, the letters are alive. They dance in their seats. Sometimes they rise and dance in the margins and aisles. ~ Robert Bringhurst

Each of these men illustrates the true meaning of worship. They feared the Lord and maintained their rightful position before Him in their hearts. They were so devoted to the Lord that their worship continued even in extremely difficult circumstances. Those who simply "draw near with their words" and whose reverence for Him "consists of tradition learned by rote" (Isaiah 29:13) have no understanding of real worship. Although they may experience a certain vague sense of His presence as they sing hymns and choruses, their revelation of Him will be extremely superficial. ~ Steve Gallagher

New surroundings have a way of returning attention to areas that may have become rote. ~ Sara Genn

She once used me with that insolence, that in revenge I took her to pieces; sifted her, and separated her failings; I studied 'em, and got 'em by rote. The catalogue was so large, that I was not without hopes, one day or other to hate her heartily. ~ William Congreve

For the first time in his life, Midhat wished he were more religious. Of course he prayed, but though that was a private mechanism it sometimes felt like a public act, and the lessons of the Quran were lessons by rote, one was steeped in them, hearing them so often. They were the texture of his world, and yet they did not occupy that central, vital part of his mind, the part that was vibrating at this moment, on this train, rattling forward while he struggled to hold all these pieces. As a child he had felt some of the same curiosity he held for the mysteries of other creeds - for Christianity with its holy fire, the Samaritans with their alphabets - but that feeling had dulled while he was still young, when traditional religion began to seem a worldly thing, a realm of morals and laws and the same old stories and holidays. They were acts, not thoughts. He faced the water now along the coast, steadying his gaze on the slow distance, beyond the blur of trees pushing past the tracks, on the desolate fishing boats hobbling over the waves. He sensed himself tracing the lip of something very large, something black and well-like, a vessel which was at the same time an emptiness, and he thought, without thinking precisely, only feeling with the tender edges of his mind, what the Revelation might have been for in its origin. Why it was so important that they could argue to the sword what it meant if God had hands, and whether He had made the universe. Underneath it all was a living u ~ Isabella Hammad

... schools in many industrialized nations were not, for the most part, designed to produce innovative thinkers or questioners -- their primary purpose was to produce workers. The author Seth Godin writes, "Our grandfathers and great grandfathers built schools to train people to have a lifetime of productive labor as part of the industrialized economy. And it worked."
To create good workers, educations systems put a premium on compliancy and rote memorization of basic knowledge -- excellent qualities in an industrial worker. (Or, as the cartoonist and Simpsons creator Matt Groening puts it, "it seems the main rule that traditional schools teach is how to sit in rows quietly, which is perfect training for grown-up work in a dull office or factory, but not so good for education.")
And not so good for questioning: To the extent a school is like a factory, students who inquire about "the way things are" could be seen as insubordinate. It raises, at least in my mind, a question that may seem extreme: If schools were build on a factory model, were they actually designed to squelch questions? ~ Warren Berger

I'm not making light of prayers here, but of so-called school prayer, which bears as much resemblance to real spiritual experienceas that freeze-dried astronaut food bears to a nice standing rib roast. From what I remember of praying in school, it was almost an insult to God, a rote exercise in moving your mouth while daydreaming or checking out the cutest boy in the seventh grade that was a far, far cry from soul-searching. ~ Anna Quindlen

I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way - by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! ~ Richard Feynman

Back in those less complicated times, there were lots of industries that operated more or less by rote: the old banker's motto, for instance, was "3-6-3": take money in at 3 percent, lend it out at 6 percent, and be on the golf course by 3 P.M. ~ Bethany McLean

I loved the solar smile he would turn on his friends at times
and on me
nonplussing us when he simply left it on us, full-beam, for such a long, long moment that we'd finally have no choice but to realize this was no social smile, no rote kind of friendliness: this was what it felt like to be completely seen and loved for a moment. ~ David James Duncan

People doing rote assembly-line movements, or someone tossing dough over and over in a pizza parlour is boring. It's boring to watch and boring to perform. But if you're a bad pizza thrower who drops the dough or watches it stick to the ceiling, then we know something more about your character. ~ Mark Sutton

It's better not to try to learn all the lines by rote. It's a very bad idea, in fact. You have to do it by using the process, and as I say, the process is to learn during rehearsals, and that's how you'll do it. ~ Angela Lansbury

Dyslexia lends itself to original thinking, not rote formulas, because you can't do the formulas - you think up your own method based on intuition and instincts. Creativity is trial and error, trying to figure out a way to do something emotionally and intuitively. ~ Philip Schultz

A soldier's first duty, his reason for being, is not to fight. Fighting is the final recourse for any civilized people. His duty is not even to preserve the peace; that is a police officer's job," Comdr. Stephen Michaels of the NAC military said by rote, remembering the many long nights of arguments and discussions that had brought this to his mind. "A soldier's first duty is simply to stand between his nation and any who might wish it harm. ~ Evan Currie

A statesman is an easy man, he tells his lies by rote.
A journalist invents his lies, and rams them down your throat.
So stay at home and drink your beer and let the neighbors vote. ~ William Butler Yeats

( ... ) rest content and satisfied that as you are caught in the noose of love it is one of worth and merit that has taken you, and one that has not only the the four S's that they say true lovers ought to have, but a complete alphabet; only listen to me and you will see how I can repeat it by rote. He is to my eyes and thinking, Amiable, Brave, Courteous, Distinguished, Elegant, Fond, Gay, Honorable, Illustrious, Loyal, Manly, Noble, Open, Polite, Quickwitted, Rich, and the S's according to the saying, and then Tender, Veracious: X does not suite him, for it is a rough letter; Y has been given already; and Z Zealous for your honour. ~ Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

I'm all through as a human being," she said. "All you're looking at is the lingering memory of what I used to be. The most important part of me, what used to be inside, died years ago, and I'm just functioning by rote memory. ~ Haruki Murakami

here's a very worthwhile question to meditate on: How are we, in our own way, going to express and live out the meaning contained in the prayer? Simply by rote recitation? It'll be nothing more than an exercise in futility and hypocrisy unless we seek to understand it and make it real in our lives." To ~ Monks Of New Skete

Don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way - by rote, ~ Richard Feynman

I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a dayspare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. ~ Sylvia Plath

Father Alfonso and Father Octavio could make Pepe feel as if he were a betrayer of the Catholic faith - as if he were a raving secular humanist, or worse. (Could there be anyone worse, from a Jesuitical perspective?) Father Alfonso and Father Octavio knew their Catholic dogma by rote; while the two priests talked circles around Brother Pepe, and they made Pepe feel inadequate in his belief, they were irreparably doctrinaire. ~ John Irving

The fact is, the great intellectuals of the western religious tradition from Augustine to Aquinas and Peter Abelard became philosophically dominant. The intellectual tradition was preserved. The great intellectuals of the Islamic tradition like Averroes and Avicenna became heretics whose influence disappeared under the weight of rote preaching and practice. Islam as a result has a moral code, a legalistic system of right and wrong, but no evolved ethical tradition. ~ R. Joseph Hoffmann

I am afraid of getting older. I am afraid of getting married. Spare me from cooking three meals a day - spare me from the relentless cage of routine and rote. I want to be free. ( ... ) I want, I think, to be omniscient ... I think I would like to call myself "The girl who wanted to be God." Yet if I were not in this body, where would I be - perhaps I am destined to be classified and qualified. But, oh, I cry out against it. I am I - I am powerful - but to what extent? I am I. ~ Sylvia Plath

So much of desire, at that age, was a willful act. Trying so hard to slur the rough, disappointing edges of boys into the shape of someone we could love. We spoke of our desperate need for them with rote and familiar words, like we were reading lines from a play. Later I would see this: how impersonal and grasping our love was, pinging around the universe, hoping for a host to give form to our wishes. ~ Emma Cline

I wondered if I could call my experience in the chapel prayer
not a long list of asking, after all, or a rote string of words, but rather a kind of sacred listening. [p, 355] ~ Kim Edwards

Considering what he'd been through in the last five days, rote hallucinations would've been a welcome return to sanity. ~ Blake Crouch

Government schools, with your tax money, now discourage the teaching of multiplication tables by rote memorization but teach reading by the 'look-and-say' method which is memorization of spelling patterns. In doing so, they ensure that children will neither be able to read nor calculate. ~ Greg Perry

In most schools, we measure children on what they know. By and large, they have to memorize the content of whatever test is coming up. Because measuring the results of rote learning is easy, rote prevails. What kids know is just not important in comparison with whether they can think. ~ Sugata Mitra

But on those Friday afternoons, ambition did not spread its wings to embrace the study of medicine. We all wanted to be masters like our teachers. Their life appeared to be so enjoyable. All they had to do was learn the lessons set, by heart, and sit and hear boys repeat them by rote. ~ Austin Clarke

When that Aprille with his shoures sote.
The droghte of Marche hath perced to the rote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
Of which vertue engendred is the flour. ~ Geoffrey Chaucer

If a fast doesn't include any sacrifices, then it's not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided. ~ Jen Hatmaker

Reciting from rote seems a terrible way to honor the gods and a precise killing of the power of the words. ~ Thomm Quackenbush

Memory is not wisdom ; idiots can rote volumes :
Yet, what is wisdom without memory ? a babe that is strangled in its birth ;
The path of the swallow in the air ; the path of the dolphin in the waters ;
A cask running out ; a bottomless chasm : such is wisdom without memory.
There be many wise, who cannot store their knowledge ;
Yet from themselves are they satisfied, for the fountain is within : ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes. Yet what is wisdom without memory? ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves. ~ George Eliot

Rote learning is a killer for most of us and for some people, it really excludes them. ~ Nicholas Negroponte

A man must serve his time to every trade,
Save censure-critics all are ready made.
Take hackney'd jokes from Miller, got by rote
With just enough learning to misquote ... ~ Lord Byron

In combat, spontaneity rules; rote performance of technique perishes. ~ Bruce Lee

Therein lies the key, I think, to Einstein's brilliance and the lessons of his life. As a young student he never did well with rote learning. And later, as a theorist, his success came not from the brute strength of his mental processing power but from his imagination and creativity. ~ Walter Isaacson

She started life with a number, not a name. Class: S, No. 13295. She has them memorized by rote, though nobody ever calls her that. The Scientists feel foolish addressing her in long, bewildering strings of alphanumerics. They have told her so themselves. To save time, they simply call her Snow. ~ Nenia Campbell

Your prim faith in the True Sect's canon serves naught. The temple preaches a loveless morality that cares not one jot for the plight of our livelihood. The priests are fat parasites, theosophizing on their rumps while folk like us break our backs, milked dry by their tithes and their rote obligations. Where does their doctrine show the least concern for our chance to enjoy the fruits of our happiness? ~ Janny Wurts

The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealic attitude ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Motivation of this sort, once it catches hold, is a ferocious force, and in the gradeless, degreeless institution where our student would find himself, he wouldn't stop with rote engineering information. ~ Robert M. Pirsig

Any process can be improved. Defects that are invisible to the knowledgeable may be obvious to newcomers. The simplest solutions are the best. Repeating all these anecdotes isn't rote monotony - it's calculated strategy. "The rest of us try to muddle around with complicated contradictory goals and it makes it harder for people to help us," says his friend Danny Hillis. "Jeff is very clear and simple about his goals, and the way he articulates them makes it easy for others, because it's consistent. ~ Brad Stone

First I smell that smell and am overcome with a sensation of elation. Like a tight faucet turned open, everything floods from me. I scan the view, take a deep breath, and inevitably utter, "God, I love it here." I stride quickly to where the sand is still wet from the previous tide and then, and then I am gone. There is no thinking, just being. I have no awareness of time or of myself. If I am searching for glass, it is rote, with no more or less consciousness than a jellyfish searching for sustenance. It is not mindlessness or oblivion, as I am wholly aware, but in a way that preempts any reality outside of the moment. There I am seaweed, I am water, I am stone, I am fish. I am a grain of sand, warm in the sun. I am reduced to nothing, but part of everything. I am home, I am free, I am one with the sea, I am the primordial me, and the glass is just my excuse to be there. ~ Sherry D. Fields

But [in bureaucracies], too, decision making takes place in a world full of unceratinties. Any actual system of information processing, planning and control will never be optimal but merely practical, applying rote responses to recurrent problems and employing a variety of contingency tactics to deal with unforeseen events. ~ Manuel De Landa

The recalling of beautiful things, whether they are your own experiences or the acheivements of others, is a creative act. Simple ideas can be restated by rote; but profound ideas must be recreated by will and imagination. ~ Robert Grudin

His kisses were too rote; they were assembly-line kisses. She wanted complex kisses; she wanted each kiss to be a conversation. ~ Brian Morton

Wonder Woman isn't Spider-man or Batman. She doesn't have a town, she has a world. That was more interesting to me than a kind of contained, rote superhero franchise. ~ Joss Whedon

We labor hard for certain but the work is rote and our tomorrows are mostly settled and the way we love one another is cast by the form of our excellent contiguity, a rigorous closeness that only rarely oversteps its bounds. ~ Chang-rae Lee

We joined a Conservative synagogue. I began learning through engagement, rote and reading. Suddenly, I belonged ... well, to the extent that a novelist can ever feel she is part of a group; we may be part of a minyan, but we're not fully merged into the community. ~ Susan Isaacs

The reason they outperformed her was that they accepted each new "product" without trying to understand it. They got behind the new pitch wholeheartedly, even when it was risible and/or made no sense, and then, if a prospective customer had trouble understanding the "product," they didn't vocally agree that it sure was difficult to understand, didn't make a good-faith effort to explain the complicated reasoning behind it, but simply kept hammering on the written pitch. And clearly this was the path to success, and it was all a double disillusionment to Pip, who not only felt actively punished for using her brain but was presented every month with fresh evidence that Bay Area consumers on average responded better to a rote and semi-nonsensical pitch than to a well-meaning saleswoman trying to help them understand the offer. ~ Jonathan Franzen

...they had succumbed to an impersonal and anonymous mode of consciousness which precluded personal feeling and which was devoid of a secure sense of self-identity. Everything tended to be seen in 'abstract' terms, as theoretical possibilities which could be contemplated and compared but to the concrete realization of which people were unwilling to commit themselves. If they attended to their own attitudes or emotions it was through a thick haze of pseudo-scientific expressions or cliche-ridden phrases which they had picked up from books or newspapers rather than in the direct light of their own inner experience. Living had become a matter of knowing rather than doing; accumulating information and learning things by rote as opposed to taking decisions that bore the stamp of individual passion or conviction. ~ Patrick L. Gardiner

If you define your personality as creative, it only means you understand what is perceived to be creative by the world at large, so you're really just following a rote creative template. That's the opposite of creativity. Everybody is wrong about everything, just about all the time.
But ANYWAY ... ~ Chuck Klosterman

You wags that judge by rote, and damn by rule. ~ Thomas Otway

I channel the rote and the new and unseen. My head has always been the busiest of crossroads, a festival of happy and unhappy arrivals. In the hours before daybreak when I was a boy, god sent me words as visitors. ~ Jim Shepard

Like the monks chanting their Pali mantras, learning by rote was the accepted method of education just as in English schools of the time. 'In geography,' Sokheang recalled, 'we would have to learn the size of a country, the population, the agricultural produce, etcetera. And we would get called up to recite it to the rest of the class.' The accuracy of this recitation was the measure of a successful student. 'Knowledge,' said Sokheang, 'was the storage of facts. ~ Nic Dunlop

The human mind is an incredible thing. It can conceive of the magnificence of the heavens and the intricacies of the basic components of matter. Yet for each mind to achieve its full potential, it needs a spark. The spark of enquiry and wonder.
Often that spark comes from a teacher. Allow me to explain. I wasn't the easiest person to teach, I was slow to learn to read and my handwriting was untidy. But when I was fourteen my teacher at my school in St Albans, Dikran Tahta, showed me how to harness my energy and encouraged me to think creatively about mathematics. He opened my eyes to maths as the blueprint of the universe itself. If you look behind every exceptional person there is an exceptional teacher. When each of us thinks about what we can do in life, chances are we can do it because of a teacher.
[...] The basis for the future of education must lie in schools and inspiring teachers. But schools can only offer an elementary framework where sometimes rote-learning, equations and examinations can alienate children from science. Most people respond to a qualitative, rather than a quantitative, understanding, without the need for complicated equations. Popular science books and articles can also put across ideas about the way we live. However, only a small percentage of the population read even the most successful books. Science documentaries and films reach a mass audience, but it is only one-way communication. ~ Stephen Hawking

There are plenty of people in the world whose lives are governed by rote and routine. Such people will never be happy dealing with me, because I don't conform. Luckily, the world is also full of people who care about results, and those people are usually very happy with me, because my Asperger's compels me to be the ultimate expert in whatever field of interest I choose. And with substantial knowledge, I can obtain good results. ~ John Elder Robison

She made herself ill remembering her last words to him, hearing them over and over as she carried her bucket up and down the stairs, as she ate her lonely soup, as she sat in the confessional before the priest.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned." She leaned on the partition, feeling the dampness at her forehead and her breast from the holy water's anointment. "It has been one month since my last confession."
"And what sins have you committed since then?" Father Marche's question was so familiar, his cadence always precisely the same, kind but tired, a little bored.
Violetta always gave her rote response: acts of laziness and selfishness, disobeying the prioress, taking the Lord's name in vain. Not today. Her words choked her. She could hardly get them out.
"I have lied to a friend."
Father looked at her through the grate. He'd never done that. "This weighs on you."
She nodded; tears spilled from her eyes. "It is unforgivable."
"Nothing is unforgivable with penance and contrition," he said with a kind of faith Violetta could not muster. He went on about Hail Marys; she said them aloud in a daze. He gave her absolution, but it did nothing to ease her mind or heart. As she left the confessional, she felt diseased by her own actions.
Mino thought she didn't care. But apart from music, he was the best thing in her life. ~ Lauren Kate

The rote nature of education in contemporary Muslim societies can be traced to attitudes inherited from traditional education, wherein knowledge is something to be acquired rather than discovered. and in which the attitude of mind is passive and receptive rather than creative and inquisitive. The social conditioning of an authoritarian traditional environment has. as an inescapable consequence. That all knowledge comes to be viewed as unchangeable and all books tend to be memorized or venerated to some degree. The concept of secular knowledge as a problem-solving tool which evolves over time is alien to traditional thought. ~ Pervez Hoodbhoy

You have to follow your intuition. That is what expertise is: all the experience, the cases won and lost, the painful mistakes, all the technical details you learn by rote repetition, over time these things leave you with an instinctive sense of your craft. A "gut" for it. ~ William Landay

At Eton boys are woken at 5 a.m.; lessons begin at 6 a.m. and go on to 8 p.m. Teaching is generally in Latin and is a matter of learning by rote, ~ Ian Mortimer

Memorizing someone else's explanation of the truth isn't the same as seeing the truth for yourself. It is what it is - the memorization of second-hand knowledge. It is not your experience. It is not your knowledge. And no matter how much material is learned by rote, and no matter how eloquently we can speak about the memorized information, we're clinging to a description of something that's not ours. What's more, the description is never the item itself. By holding onto our impression of certain descriptions, we frequently are unable to see the real thing when it's right before our eyes. We are conditioned by memorizing and believing concepts - the truth of which we've never genuinely seen for ourselves. ~ H.E. Davey

rather than having it transferred to them through rote memorization or a virtual intravenous tube. ~ Jonathan E. Finkelstein

I grew up going to public school, and they were huge public schools. I went to a school that had 3,200 kids, and I had grade school classes with 40-some kids. Discipline was rigid. Most of the learning was rote. It worked. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

We've each given the hours of our lives in dull rote jobs for other men's profit, and have been asked to be grateful for doing that. ~ Charles Bukowski

Incomplete," he says. "If I'm whole, why do I feel like I'm not?" And as usual, Roberta has a calming platitude intended to ease his mind, but as time goes on her rote wisdom leaves him flat and disappointed.

"Wholeness comes from creating experiences that are solely yours, Cam," she tells him. "Live your life and soon you'll find the lives of those who came before won't matter. Those who gave rise to you mean nothing compared to what you are."

But how can he live his life when he's not convinced he has one? The attacks in the press conference still plague him. If a human being has a soul, then where is his? And if the human soul is indivisible, then how can his be the sum of the parts of all the kids who gave rise to him? He's not one of them, he's not all of them, so who is he?

His questions make Roberta impatient. "I'm sorry," she tells him, "but I don't deal in the unanswerable."

"So you don't believe in souls?" Cam asks her.

"I didn't say that, but I don't try to answer things that don't have tangible data. If people have souls, then you must have one, proved by the mere fact that you're alive."

"But what if there is no 'I' inside me? What if I'm just flesh going through the motions, with nothing inside?"

Roberta considers this, or at least pretends to. "Well, if that were the case, I doubt you'd be asking these questions." She thinks for a moment. "If you must have a construct, then think of it ~ Neal Shusterman

Even as our world is being daily transformed by breathtaking innovations in science and technology, many people continue to imagine that math and science are mostly a matter of memorizing formulas to get "the right answer." Even engineering, which is in fact the process of creating something from scratch or putting things together in novel and non-self-evident ways, is perplexingly viewed as a mechanical or rote subject. This viewpoint, frankly, could only be held by people who never truly learned math or science, who are stubbornly installed on one side of the so-called Two Culture divide. The truth is that anything significant that happens in math, science, or engineering is the result of heightened intuition and creativity. This is art by another name, and it's something that tests are not very good at identifying or measuring. The skills and knowledge that tests can measure are merely warm-up exercises. ~ Salman Khan

It is one of the greatest Curses visited upon Mankind, he told me, that they shall fear where no Fear is: this astrological and superstitious Humour disarms men's Hearts, it breaks their Courage, it makes them help to bring such Calamities on themselves. Then he stopped short and looked at me, but my Measure was not yet fill'd up so I begg' d him to go on, go on. And he continued: First, they fancy that such ill Accidents must come to pass, and so they render themselves fit Subjects to be wrought upon; it is a Disgrace to the Reason and Honour of Mankind that every fantasticall Humourist can presume to interpret the Skies (here he grew Hot and put down his Dish) and to expound the Time and Seasons and Fates of Empires, assigning the Causes of Plagues and Fires to the Sins of Men or the Judgements of God. This weakens the Constancy of Humane Actions, and affects Men with Fears, Doubts, Irresolutions and Terrours.

I was afraid of your Moving Picture, I said without thought, and that was why I left.

It was only Clock-work, Nick.

But what of the vast Machine of the World, in which Men move by Rote but in which nothing is free from Danger?

Nature yields to the Froward and the Bold.

It does not yield, it devours: You cannot master or manage Nature.

But, Nick, our Age can at least take up the Rubbidge and lay the Foundacions: that is why we must study the principles of Nature, for they are our best Draught.

Peter Ackroyd

They should."
"Should be like a wood bee," she said.
It was a private joke, a mocking appreciation of the slipperiness of even the simplest hope, a nonce catchphrase like so many others lifted from favorite movies or TV shows that served as a rote substitute for conversation and bound them like shut-in twins, each other's best and, most often, only audience. ~ Stewart O'Nan

: we live blindly. We repeat the same mistakes by rote until an emotional punch to the gut brings us up short ... Sometimes it requires intense pain before we can take a good hard look at ourselves, before we ask the important questions ... Who am I? What is important? What do I believe? What do I want? ~ Joan Medlicott

Analytical software enables you to shift human resources from rote data collection to value-added customer service and support where the human touch makes a profound difference. ~ Bill Gates

I think there's too much emphasis placed on learning things by rote that you don't really care about. So what happens to students in school is that they eventually lose interest in learning, because they've been forced to learn the required courses, rather than pursing their passion. ~ Jack Canfield

Instruction in world history in the so-called high schools is even today in a very sorry condition. Few teachers understand that the study of history can never be to learn historical dates and events by heart and recite them by rote; that what matters is not whether the child knows exactly when this battle or that was fought, when a general was born, or even when a monarch (usually a very insignificant one) came into the crown of his forefathers. No, by the living God, this is very unimportant. To 'learn' history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events. ~ Adolf Hitler

What is Strange and disconcerting about Jesus is the fact that he rarely makes demands. The style of teaching he engages in is not rote on memorization or indoctrination but Socratic, propositional and inductive. The listener is invited to explore and come to a conclusion. It is the desire of Christ for his audience to reach a conclusion and not be told what to think.
Stories, sayings, reversals, parables and other forms of teaching used by Jesus are not good teaching tools for people who seek simplistic answers. Jesus teaches but requires more of a listener. We are invited to join the journey, wrestle with our assumptions, confront our spiritual bigotry and struggle with the humbling mystery and profound profundity of God.
This is HARD faith, especially for the modern reader. We want the speaker to tell us what to think. We want our stories tidy, without complication, and we do not want questions designed to coerce us beyond easy answers. This is the LIFE and MINISTRY of Jesus. He was a walking mobile university, a theological gadfly, a spiritual teacher and Savior who cannot be contained by tradition, conformity or assimilation. Jesus is loose in the world quietly upending all assumptions, ideas and concepts we hold true. ~ Otis Moss II

People fluent in two languages can lose either one after trauma, since first and second languages* draw on distinct neural circuits. Language deficits can even interfere with math. We seem to have a natural "number circuit" in the parietal lobe that handles comparisons and magnitudes - the basis of most arithmetic. But we learn some things (like the times tables) linguistically, by rote memorization. So if language goes kaput, so too will those linguistically based skills. More strikingly, some people who struggle to string even three words together can sing just fine. ~ Sam Kean

I am drowning in negativism, self-hate, doubt, madness - and even I am not strong enough to deny the routine, the rote, to simplify. No, I go plodding on, afraid that the blank hell in back of my eyes will break through, spewing forth like a dark pestilence; afraid that the disease which eats away the pith of my body with merciless impersonality will break forth in obvious sores and warts, screaming Traitor, sinner, imposter. ~ Sylvia Plath

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not. ~ Laurence Sterne

This practical musicality was a comprehensive craft that involved thinking creatively and realizing it in sound. Music meant more than merely following instructions. The rote repetition of other people's music, including Bach's own, was used as example and was not the end itself. Students were encouraged to alter scores by adding notes, reducing the time value of notes, dropping notes, and changing or adding ornamentation, dynamics, and so on. One couldn't even get into Bach's teaching studio without first showing some rudimentary composing ability. ~ Scott Jarrett

I struggle to learn by rote. I've had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful. ~ Benedict Cumberbatch

More than anything else today, followers believe they are part of a system, a process that lacks heart. If there is one thing a leader can do to connect with followers at a human, or better still a spiritual level, it is to become engaged with them fully, to share experiences and emotions, and to set aside the processes of leadership we have learned by rote. ~ Lance Secretan

The subconscious is a minefield of unwanted rote thoughts. ~ Steven Redhead

Many think of memory as rote learning, a linear stuffing of the brain with facts, where understanding is irrelevant. When you teach it properly, with imagination and association, understanding becomes a part of it. ~ Tony Buzan

Ivy gave the woman's hand a firm squeeze before letting it go. "What do you need?" she asked. "We're holding up." That, too, sounded like a rote reply, recited over and over again in hopes that it might somehow become the truth. ~ Jennifer Lynn Barnes

There are indeed in some writers visible instances of deep thoughts, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give, would be of great use, if their readers would observe and imitate them; all the rest at best are but particulars fit to be turned into knowledge, but that can be done only by our own meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said; and then, as far as we apprehend and see the connection of ideas, so far it is ours; without that, it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowledge not increased, by being able to repeat what others have said or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found in books is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly deduced from the principles it is pretended to be built on. ~ John Locke

Learn Languages the Right Way. Language acquisition games and abstract communicative method are bullshit. The second-best way to learn a foreign language is alone in a room doing skull-numbing rote memorization of vocabulary, grammar, key phrases, and colloquialisms. The best way is in bed. ~ Chuck Thompson