'We Need the Humanities... Because We're Human'

via Shelf Awareness

"Even if we read books and talk about them for four years, and then do something else more obviously remunerative, it won't be time wasted. We need the humanities not because they will produce shrewder entrepreneurs or kinder CEOs but because, as that first professor said, they help us enjoy life more and endure it better. The reason we need the humanities is because we're human. That's enough."

--Adam Gopnik in his New Yorker essay, "Why Teach English?"