Wednesday, April 14, 2010

Quote of the Day

Fish never discover water.

- Louis Agassiz

2 comments:

Jeff said...

Author David Foster Wallace, in a commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005, told this story:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says "Morning, boys. How's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes "What the hell is water?"

He added:

"The point of the fish story is merely that the most obvious, important realities are often the ones that are hardest to see and talk about."

Point made and taken...

PS - The speech was actually published in book form. But if you want to read it in its entirety, it's here:

http://web.archive.org/web/20080213082423/http://www.marginalia.org/dfw_kenyon_commencement.html

Michael Wade said...

Jeff,

Great story.

Thanks for the speech link. I'll check it out.

Michael