Give a man a hoe and he is something to exploit. Give him a book and he is something to fear.

Eric Burns
Give a man a hoe and he is something to...
Give a man a hoe and he is something to...
Give a man a hoe and he is something to...
Give a man a hoe and he is something to...
About This Quote

A hoe is a tool for farmers to harvest crops. A book is something that can be read or studied. This quote means that the only way to teach someone how to do something is by giving them a book. If you are not careful, however, people can become obsessed with reading books instead of using their minds for business matters.

Source: The Joy Of Books

Some Similar Quotes
  1. A half-read book is a half-finished love affair. - David Mitchell

  2. The love of learning, the sequestered nooks, And all the sweet serenity of books - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  3. It starts so young, and I'm angry about that. The garbage we're taught. About love, about what's "romantic." Look at so many of the so-called romantic figures in books and movies. Do we ever stop and think how many of them would cause serious and... - Deb Caletti

  4. I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men."" Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes,... - Jane Austen

  5. Someone once wrote that a novel should deliver a series of small astonishments. I get the same thing spending an hour with you. - E. Lockhart

More Quotes By Eric Burns
  1. Give a man a hoe and he is something to exploit. Give him a book and he is something to fear.

  2. The serious reader in the age of technology is a rebel by definition: a protester without a placard, a Luddite without hammer or bludgeon. She reads on planes to picket the antiseptic nature of modern travel, on commuter trains to insist on individualism in the...

  3. The library is not, as some would have it, a place for the retiring of disposition or faint of heart. It is not an ivory tower or a quiet room in a sanitarium facing away from the afternoon sun. It is, rather, a command center,...

Related Topics