Listen to episode 244 of the Inspirational Living podcast: The University of Hard Knocks | Lifelong Learning. Edited and adapted from a Lyceum-Chautauqua lecture by Ralph Albert Parlette.
Podcast Excerpt: Welcome to the Inspirational Living podcast. If you enjoy our podcast, don’t forget to like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, subscribe to us on YouTube, and spread the word among your friends. Thank you. Today’s podcast was edited and adapted from The University of Hard Knocks by Ralph Albert Parlette, published in 1916.
NOBODY can give us or buy us an education. We earn it in The University of Hard Knocks. Books and Colleges only give us some tools — some of the best tools in the world. We must use these tools in the School of Service.
It is the Service, the Struggle, the Sacrifice, the Overcoming, the Achievement, that brings us the Knowing, the Understanding, the Success, the Happiness, the Strength, and the Greatness of Life. "You who would be greatest among many, let you become the Greatest Servant" — for Greatness is merely the ability to carry great loads, to serve greatly.
You cannot buy a great arm; you earn it in physical service. You cannot buy a great mind; you earn it in mental service. You cannot buy a great character; you earn it in moral service.
Our philosophy of education is based on the belief that we only know what we have lived. We only understand what we have proven in the laboratories of our experience. We can't get something for nothing. We do not learn from books, we learn from bumps and bruises. We learn in the one great school: The University of Hard Knocks.