Selected education quotes

1. Irresponsibility is part of the pleasure of all art; it is the part the schools cannot recognize.

2. The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.

3. Do not imagine that mathematics is hard and crabbed, and repulsive to common sense. It is merely the etherealization of common sense.

4. I find Cambridge an asylum, in every sense of the word.

5. I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

6. Education is learning to grow, learning what to grow toward, learning what is good and bad, learning what is desirable and undesirable, learning what to choose and what not to choose.

7. I think everyone should go to college and get a degree and then spend six months as a bartender and six months as a cabdriver. Then they would really be educated.

8. In my view, only those who have had the courage to work through Lacan's anti-philosophy without faltering deserve to be called 'contemporary philosophers'.

9. Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it.

10. It goes against the grain of modern education to teach students to program. What fun is there to making plans, acquiring discipline, organizing thoughts, devoting attention to detail, and learning to be self critical.

11. Do not worry about your difficulties in Mathematics. I can assure you mine are still greater.

12. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

13. We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

14. The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

15. Well, I think every film student goes into film school thinking they want to write and direct their own movies, and they don't realize how much goes into it, and what a process it is.

16. Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

17. Liberal learning is both a safeguard against false ideas of freedom and a source of true ones.

18. A Socrates in every classroom.

19. I approach cooking from a science angle because I need to understand how things work. If I understand the egg, I can scramble it better. It's a simple as that.

20. I grew up in Cambridge in England, and my love of mathematics dates from those early childhood days.

21. I hope that seeing the excitement of solving this problem will make young mathematicians realize that there are lots and lots of other problems in mathematics which are going to be just as challenging in the future.

22. Taking a year off and going to school was the best thing I could have done after The Princess Diaries. It taught me that I don't need Hollywood or a job to make me happy.

23. There is no royal road to learning; no short cut to the acquirement of any art.

24. Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.

25. Education is the best provision for old age.

26. Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.

27. It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

28. The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

29. The generality of men are naturally apt to be swayed by fear rather than reverence, and to refrain from evil rather because of the punishment that it brings than because of its own foulness.

30. The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

31. When the students are occupied, they're not juvenile delinquents. I believe that education is a capital investment.

32. Does there, I wonder, exist a being who has read all, or approximately all, that the person of average culture is supposed to have read, and that not to have read is a social sin? If such a being does exist, surely he is an old, a very old man.

33. When I first came to Arsenal, I realised the back four were all university graduates in the art of defending. As for Tony Adams, I consider him to be a doctor of defence. He is simply outstanding.

34. By whatever means it is accomplished, the prime business of a play is to arouse the passions of its audience so that by the route of passion may be opened up new relationships between a man and men, and between men and Man. Drama is akin to the other inventions of man in that it ought to help us to know more, and not merely to spend our feelings.

35. It's easier to learn many other things, if you first learn how to learn.

36. If only our great thinkers could learn to talk, and our great talkers could learn to think.

37. The truly successful teacher is the one you will never need again.

38. I read world literature and I read French romances in the originals. I had quite a profound knowledge - no, that sounds conceited, but I did have a profound interest in everything spiritual.

39. Libraries are the one American institution you shouldn't rip off.

40. From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.

41. I would defend the liberty of consenting adult creationists to practice whatever intellectual perversions they like in the privacy of their own homes; but it is also necessary to protect the young and innocent.

42. My favourite definition of 'Intellectual' is: 'A person whose education surpasses their intelligence.'

43. If the reader has also received the benefit of the Vedas, the access to which by means of the Upanishads is in my eyes the greatest privilege which this still young century may claim before all previous centuries, if then the reader, I say, has received his initiation in primeval Indian wisdom, and received it with an open heart, he will be prepared in the very best way for hearing what I have to tell him. It will not sound to him strange, as to many others, much less disagreeable; for I might, if it did not sound conceited, contend that every one of the detached statements which constitute the Upanishads, may be deduced as a necessary result from the fundamental thoughts which I have to enunciate, though those deductions themselves are by no means to be found there.

44. Im allgemeinen freilich haben die Weisen aller Zeiten immer dasselbe gesagt, und die Toren, d.h. die unermessliche Majoritat aller Zeiten, haben immer dasselbe, namlich das Gegenteil getan; und so wird es denn auch ferner bleiben.

45. Patriotism, when it wants to make itself felt in the domain of learning, is a dirty fellow who should be thrown out of doors.

46. Truth that has been merely learned is like an ?artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, ?like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to ?us only 'because it is put on. But truth acquired by ?thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone ?really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference ?between the thinker and the mere man of learning. ?The intellectual attainments of a man who thinks ?for himself resemble a fine painting, where the light ?and shade are correct, the tone sustained, the colour ?perfectly harmonised; it is true to life. On the other ?hand, the intellectual attainments of the mere man of ?learning are like a large palette, full of all sorts of ?colours, which at most are systematically arranged, ?but devoid of harmony, connection and meaning.

47. Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes.

48. As the strata of the earth preserve in succession the living creatures of past epochs, so the shelves of libraries preserve in succession the errors of the past and their expositions, which like the former were very lively and made a great commotion in their own age but now stand petrified and stiff in a place where only the literary palaeontologist regards them.

49. The poet presents the imagination with images from life and human characters and situations, sets them all in motion and leaves it to the beholder to let these images take his thoughts as far as his mental powers will permit. This is why he is able to engage men of the most differing capabilities, indeed fools and sages together. The philosopher, on the other hand, presents not life itself but the finished thoughts which he has abstracted from it and then demands that the reader should think precisely as, and precisely as far as, he himself thinks. That is why his public is so small.

50. A man who has no mental needs, because his intellect is of the narrow and normal amount, is, in the strict sense of the word, what is called a philistine.

51. Intellect is invisible to the man who has none.

52. Men of learning are those who have read the contents of books. Thinkers, geniuses, and those who have enlightened the world and furthered the race of men, are those who have made direct use of the book of the world.

53. In every page of David Hume, there is more to be learned than from Hegel's, Herbart's and Schleiermacher's complete philosophical works.

54. What disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness hover before us in our dreams ... and we search in vain for their original ... Much would have been gained if through timely advice and instruction young people could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world has a great deal to offer them.

55. Should you ever intend to dull the wits of a young man and to incapacitate his brains for any kind of thought whatever, then you cannot do better than to give him Hegel to read. For these monstrous accumulations of words that annul and contradict one another drive the mind into tormenting itself with vain attempts to think anything whatever in connection with them, until finally it collapses from sheer exhaustion. Thus any ability to think is so thoroughly destroyed that the young man will ultimately mistake empty and hollow verbiage for real thought. A guardian fearing that his ward might become too intelligent for his schemes might prevent this misfortune by innocently suggesting the reading of Hegel.

56. It is knowledge that influences and equalises the social condition of man; that gives to all, however different their political position, passions which are in common, and enjoyments which are universal.

57. A university should be a place of light, of liberty, and of learning.

58. Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

59. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery.

60. The microcosm of a public school.

61. Nurture your mind with great thoughts. To believe in the heroic makes heroes.

62. There is no education like adversity.

63. Cleanliness and order are not matters of instinct; they are matters of education, and like most great things, you must cultivate a taste for them.

64. On the education of the people of this country the fate of the country depends.

65. The best way to become acquainted with a subject is to write a book about it.

66. Well, it seems to me that he did have an education to get there. It happened to be mine, not his.

67. As long as one person lives in darkness, then it seems to be a responsibility to tell other people.

68. 'You know Debbie Gibson writes all her own songs?' No! Fucking just pull me up a chair. 'Yeah, she writes all her own songs about her own real life experiences. 'Yeah, what's the next one called? Mom why am I bleeding? When did we start listening to pre-pubescent white girls? I musta missed that meeting. We have at our fingertips the greatest minds of all-time, the knowledge and history of the greatest thinkers of ALL FUCKING TIME, but no, what's that little white girl saying? Let's go put Debbie Gibson's thoughts on compact disc so they'll never be destroyed.

69. The most important thing to teach your children is that the sun does not rise and set. It is the Earth that revolves around the sun. Then teach them the concepts of North, South, East and West, and that they relate to where they happen to be on the planet's surface at that time. Everything else will follow.

70. Man is going to be displaced altogether as a specialist by the computer. Man himself is being forced to reestablish, employ, and enjoy his innate 'comprehensivlty.' Coping with the totality of Spaceship Earth and universe is ahead for all of us.

71. We are in an age that assumes the narrowing trends of specialization to be logical, natural, and desirable. Consequently, society expects all earnestly responsible communication to be crisply brief. . . . In the meantime, humanity has been deprived of comprehensive understanding. Specialization has bred feelings of isolation, futility, and confusion in individuals. It has also resulted in the individual's leaving responsibility for thinking and social action to others. Specialization breeds biases that ultimately aggregate as international and ideological discord, which, in turn, leads to war.

72. There is an inherently minimum set of essential concepts and current information, cognizance of which could lead to our operating our planet Earth to the lasting satisfaction and health of all humanity.

73. Quite clearly, our task is predominantly metaphysical, for it is how to get all of humanity to educate itself swiftly enough to generate spontaneous social behaviors that will avoid extinction.

74. I think it's absolutely touch-and-go whether we're going to make it. But the point is, for me to tell you that you have an option is not to be optimistic... Time and again, of course I am running into millions who don't know we have the option, because it's invisible, and I feel I have tremendous responsibility. So when people ask me to come and talk to them, I do my best to let them know they do have the option. Of course they're pessimistic, not knowing that.

75. When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent illiterate. Since I've been born, the population has doubled and that total population is now 65 per cent literate. That's a gain of 130-fold of the literacy. When humanity is primarily illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and get the information and deal with it. When we are at the point where the majority of humans them-selves are literate, able to get the information, we're in an entirely new relationship to Universe. We are at the point where the integrity of the individual counts and not what the political leadership or the religious leadership says to do.

76. In a sort of ghastly simplicity we remove the organ and demand the function. We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. We castrate and bid the geldings be fruitful.

77. I fancy that most people who think at all have done a great deal of their thinking in the first fourteen years.

78. What do they teach them at these schools? (ch. 17)

79. A word as to the education of the heart. We don't believe that this can be imparted through books; it can only be imparted through the loving touch of the teacher.

80. Organizing is an educational process. The best educational process in the union is the picket line and the boycott. You learn about life.

81. Real education should consist of drawing the goodness and the best out of our own students. What better books can there be than the book of humanity?

82. Students must have initiative; they should not be mere imitators. They must learn to think and act for themselves - and be free.

83. The end of all education should surely be service to others.

84. The end of all knowledge must be the building up of character.

85. There is so much human potential wasted by poverty, so many children are forced to quit school and go to work.

86. We need to help students and parents cherish and preserve the ethnic and cultural diversity that nourishes and strengthens this community - and this nation.

87. Years of misguided teaching have resulted in the destruction of the best in our society, in our cultures and in the environment.

88. 'Our purpose is to educate as well as to entertain. Painless preaching is as good a term as any for what we do. If you're going to come away from a party singing the lyrics of a song, it is better that you sing of self-pride like 'We're a Winner' instead of 'Do the Boo-ga-loo!''

89. Four times, under our educational rules, the human pack is shuffled and cut - at eleven-plus, sixteen-plus, eighteen-plus and twenty-plus - and happy is he who comes top of the deck on each occasion, but especially the last. This is called Finals, the very name of which implies that nothing of importance can happen after it.

90. A counter tenor is anyone who can count to ten.

91. You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think.

92. The more that you read, The more things you will know. The more that you learn, The more places you'll go.

93. Speaking to a driving instructor in Scotland, he asked: 'How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to get them through the test?'[1]

94. On a visit to the new National Assembly for Wales in Cardiff, he told a group of deaf children standing next to a Jamaican steel drum band, 'Deaf? If you are near there, no wonder you are deaf.'[3][1]

95. I'm one of those stupid bums who never went to university, and a fat lot of harm it's done me. (circa 1968)

96. It is surprising the way things have changed since I first became chancellor of a university 50 years ago. (2003)

97. It doesn't look like much work goes on at this University. (2005)

98. Some people say 'Oh, I wish I was a transvestite!' and I say, 'Well, if you work hard at school, maybe one day, you know: After your exams:'

99. No one has yet fully realized the wealth of sympathy, kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.

100. Public school - where the human mind is drilled and manipulated into submission to various social and moral spooks, and thus fitted to continue our system of exploitation and oppression.