Before Truth, the Right Fork: A Theological Reflection on Ministry and Manners

p. 17

Portaro quotes Judith Martin (aka Miss Manners): “’Miss Manners abhors the idea, fashionable for the last two decades (and in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution) that the child is born good, creative, wise, and that education should therefore consist of drawing out what is there–feelings and even opinions–rather than putting things in, such as the accumulated experience and wisdom of society. In fact we are all born ignorant and oafish. What infant ever considers, when it can’t sleep, that someone else might like to?’”