Atticus' lessons:
“First of all,” Atticus says, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view — Seeing through the eyes of others
‘Sir?’
‘ — until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.’ (p. 50)
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
‘There are ways of keeping them in school by force, but it’s silly to force people like the Ewells into a new Environment.’ (p. 52) Forcing people into new environments is a bad idea
Scout, you aren’t old enough to understand some things yet, but there’s been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn’t do much about defending this man. It’s a peculiar case — it won’t come to trial until summer session. … Holding your head high, thinking with your head and keeping your cool
(Context) Atticus takes a case that he knows will put his children in harm because of who he’s defending.
‘For a number of reasons,’ said Atticus. ‘The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold my head up high in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.’ Not lowering yourself to other people's standards and keeping composure in difficult times.
‘If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doing it?
'You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you any more?’
‘That’s about right.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change . . . It’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.’
‘Atticus, are we going to win it?’
‘No, honey.’
‘Then why — ‘
‘Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.’ (p. 129)
Somehow, if I fought … I would let Atticus down. Atticus so rarely asked Jem and me to do something for him, I could take being called a coward for him. (p. 131) Rarely ask people for things
Quote Meaning
“I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.” A man does the job no one else wants to do.
“Oh,” said Jem. “Well.”
“Don’t you oh well me, sir,” Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem’s fatalistic noises, “you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.”
“This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience-Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.” A man lives with integrity every day.
“Atticus, you must be wrong…”
“How’s that?”
“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…”
“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.” The most important form of courage is moral courage.
“Son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”
“Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin’ bastard?” Live with quiet dignity.
“No, too old,” Atticus replied before putting his hands in his pockets and walking away.
“Atticus is real old, but I wouldn’t care if he couldn’t do anything-I wouldn’t care if he couldn’t do a blessed thing.”
Jem picked up a rock and threw it jubilantly at the carhouse. Running after it, he called back: “Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!”
“Do you defend niggers Atticus?” I asked him that evening. Teach your children by example.
“Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.”
“’s what everybody else at school says.”
“From now on it’ll be everybody less one.”
He teaches his kids:
- Charity
- Social justice
- Fortitude
- Empathy
- Bravery
" you never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view"
Throughout the entire book Atticus is teaching his kids lessons that the town as a whole should have learnt many years ago. The lessons that Atticus teach are often learning experiences off of situations that involved fear or something uncomfortable. His lessons were hands on and always had a key outcome.
Quotes
"Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in." - scout
"One time Atticus said you never really knew a man until you stood in his shoes and walked around in them."- scout
Instead of Atticus punishing his children when they do the wrong thing, he uses it as an opportunity to teach them life lessons with real life examples. When Mrs Dubose is sick, Atticus makes Jem go and read to her to give her a distraction from her Morphine Addiction.
“You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”- teaches them valuable life lessons