CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Free Minds and Free Men

有时候还是要准备一下，拼一次的

Discussion as an aid to reading，not reading for the sake of “brilliant” conversation.

Reading the great books well is not an end in itself. It is a means toward living a decent human life，the life of a free man and a free frozen.

吸口新鲜空气，                                    感觉自己永远都20岁

For lively conservation，you need more than books and ability to read them. You need friends and the ability to talk and listen.

青春永不腐朽

Communication not only results in something ommon；it usually needs a common background to begin with.

Our failures in communication are as much due to the lack of an initial community of ideas as to our inabilities in talking and listening.

Friendship depends on a community of interests.

有时候，我甚至觉得，一个人若是活的自私，活的自在，可以不读历史，不碰算术，不懂物理化学；也可以不闻民国，不问往事，傻愣愣地安守着自己的一方庭院，一片后园，赏闲花，养野鸟，观落日，听夜雨，岂不也好。

We and our friends are free to make plans to ourselves.

We don not wait for someone to come along and offer us a program. We do not need any elaborate machinery to set up one. We do not even need any teachers.

Get together，read the great books，and discuss them.

有趣的灵魂万里挑一

A discussion is led by the asking of questions.

Every good conversation is a unique thing.

Good discussion of important problems in the light of great books is almost a complete exercise in the arts of thinking and communicating.

心态像抗衰老冲剂，                            每天起床都必须喝一杯

One acquires a tolerance for arguement through dealing with them patiently and sympathetically.

A great book may help us by the examples it affords of penetrating insight and cogent analysis.

和镜子里的你打个招呼                        夸句还是那么牛逼

我是人间惆怅客 A Little Princess May this world be full of love