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About this quote

What does it mean?
Popularizing should elevate the audience, not lower the content to match them.
In plain terms
Make things popular by raising people up, not lowering the standard.
What can you take from it?
Respect your audience even when simplifying.

Where it applies

  • public speaking
  • teaching

Putting it to work

  • simplify respectfully
  • elevate audience

Questions to consider

  • How do you simplify without dumbing down?
  • Who benefits?

Another view

Sometimes simplification lowers quality.

More from Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

  1. Perhaps in time the so-called Dark Ages will be thought of as including our own.

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  2. Some people read because they are too lazy to think.

    Permalink to quote #147
  3. People don't think so differently about the events of life as they talk about them.

    Permalink to quote #144

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