Orson Scott Card Quotes on Learning
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There is no teacher but the enemy.
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I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you when he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher.
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So he believed. Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made [him] listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.
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Tangents. The best parts of my intellectual life are tangential, in areas outside my expertise. I supposed because within my area of expertise the regulations they have placed upon me make it impossible to know or understand anything
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When have you ever seen someone who had no doubts who was also correct about anything?'
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The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them.
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You ready to command a fleet? I don't know. It depends on whether they want to win. Here's the thing, Bean. Soldiers don't like to lose And that is why losing is a much more powerful teacher than winning.
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Why wont anyone ever answer my questions? Because you never stop asking them and especially because you keep asking them even when it's clear that nobody knows the answers Well how do I know that they don't know the answer unless I ask?
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You think my apology means I'm weak. But it doesn't. It means I am trying to learn how to be strong.
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[He] was young, too young to see the consequences of his actions, too young to contain his feelings.
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She never finished the sentence, because at that moment [he] began to learn how to kiss a woman, and she, though she had never kissed a man before, became his tutor.
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She began to understand things she had never understood before. The world was not as clear and simple a place as she had thought till now.
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How does he do that?
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I want you to discover the truth for yourself. I don't ram it down your throats like some do
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It occurred to me that if my friends were loathsome, perhaps I needed to learn from my enemies
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Wanting to is the whole lesson; all the rest is practice
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It seems that the more I learn, the less I know. While the more ignorant remain absolutely certain of their convictions
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Don't ask me questions when I don't even know the answer myself
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Some people are so right they never learn a thing.
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Knowing was better than not knowing. But not by much.
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I'll never make a mess like that again in my whole life. It took hours! You guys may think being a messy kid is easy, but I can tell you it is really hard work!
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A little learning is a dangerous thing
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'I'm not stupid!' In Bean's experience, that was a sentence never uttered except to prove its own inaccuracy. -Ender's Shadow
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I want to understand everything,' said Miro. 'I want to know everything and put it all together to see what it means.' 'Excellent project,' she [Jane] said. 'It will look very good on your resume. (Speaker for the Dead) Conversation between Miro and Jane.
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'The wise are not wise because they make no mistakes. They are wise because they correct their mistakes as soon as they recognize them. -Xenocide
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The criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them - noticing them - that was essential. If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement.
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Your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing.