A Quote by Kenneth Smith on philosophy, students, suffering, thinking, clarity, teaching, ideas, freedom, sympathy, education, and conviction

Because of the very intimate character of philosophical norms and criticisms, a teacher in philosophy has to be like Alexander the Great:  never issuing dictates as to what his soldiers ought to do that he was not ready and willing to leap into doing himself.  An excellent teacher is one accomplished in serving as an exemplar, every act of every kind of thinking and every form of perspective must be something he is prepared to illustrate by carrying out himself.  Students need to see the incandescent arc-welding that joins ideas together into thoughts.  If one is saying something that inflicts suffering, one by all rights had better be prepared to suffer along with the student, to sympathize and assure them that the profit for this agony consists in freedom and clarity.