Skip to content
quotesby

I must have a talk with you, David, and learn all the new ideas. As far as I can see, one must hate everybody but at the same time give them free medical attention and a lot of extra education, poor things! All those helpless little children herded into schoolhouses every day-and cod liver oil forced down babies' throats whether they like it or not-such nasty-smelling stuff.

Agatha Christie#21

CareControlEducationHypocrisySociety

About this quote

What does it mean?
Satirizes societal contradictions regarding care and control, highlighting hypocrisy in modern institutions.
In plain terms
We claim to care for people but often force our ideas on them.
What can you take from it?
Benevolence can mask control and condescension.

Where it applies

  • policy debates
  • parenting
  • institutional critique

Putting it to work

  • writing satire
  • social commentary
  • policy analysis

Questions to consider

  • Is help always welcome?
  • When does care become control?

Another view

The quote generalizes complex social systems into a caricature.

More from Agatha Christie

  1. I don't think I shall ever forget my first sight of Hercule Poirot. Of course, I got used to him later on, but to begin with it was a shock, and I think everyo…

    Permalink to quote #20
  2. I can imagine anything! That's the trouble with me. I can imagine things now - this minute. I could even make them sound all right, but of course none of them …

    Permalink to quote #22
  3. God bless my soul, woman, the more personal you are the better! This is a story of human beings - not dummies! Be personal - be prejudiced - be catty - be anyt…

    Permalink to quote #19

Related quotes

  1. History, in other words, is just a device to be used by well-paid boobherds to drive the American cattle in bovine content to their pastures or to the abattoir.

    Revilo P. OliverRevilo P. Oliver quote #3
  2. One of the best ways of enslaving a people is to keep them from education... The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, no…

    Eleanor RooseveltEleanor Roosevelt quote #37
  3. Mass education was designed to turn independent farmers into docile, passive tools of production. That was its primary purpose. And don't think people didn't k…

    Noam ChomskyNoam Chomsky quote #40