Quotations about:
    education


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Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Books,” Society and Solitude (1870)
 
Added on 11-Aug-16 | Last updated 8-Sep-20
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Books are the quietest and most constant of friends, and the most patient of teachers.

Charles William Eliot (1834-1926) American academic
“The Durable Satisfactions of Life,” speech, Harvard University (3 Oct 1905)
 
Added on 4-Aug-16 | Last updated 4-Aug-16
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We cannot blame the schools alone for that dismal decline in SAT verbal scores. […] What happens at home really matters. And when our kids come home from school, do they pick up a book, or do they sit glued to the tube watching music videos? Parents: don’t make the mistake of thinking your kids only learn from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. You are and always will be their first teachers.

George H. W. Bush (1924-2018) American politician, diplomat, US President (1989-1993)
Speech, Lewiston Comprehensive High School, Maine (3 Sep 1991)
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Often misattributed to his son, George W. Bush.
 
Added on 8-Jun-16 | Last updated 8-Jun-16
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Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained.

James A. Garfield (1831-1881) US President (1881), lawyer, lay preacher, educator
Letter of Acceptance, Republican nomination for President (10 Jul 1880)
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Added on 7-Jun-16 | Last updated 20-Nov-20
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A child miseducated is a child lost.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
State of the Union address (1962-01-11)

This quotation is usually attributed to Kennedy's 1963 State of the Union Address, but it does not show up in the formal text or the video recording.

It actually appears to be from his 1962 State of the Union address; while it does not appear in the text or the audio recording, it does show up in a copy in Vital Speeches and Documents of the Day, Vol. 2 (1961). There are other small textual changes to the speech in that version, which may reflect a press release version before or after the actual speech.
 
Added on 1-Jun-16 | Last updated 20-Mar-24
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Hearts full of youth!
Hearts full of truth!
Six parts gin to
One part vermouth!

Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
“Bright College Days,” An Evening (Wasted) with Tom Lehrer (1959)
 
Added on 26-May-16 | Last updated 26-May-16
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Government — they used to teach it in college. It’s actually something you should study and learn and know how to do. The Republicans always run on the idea that government isn’t very effective. Well, not the way you do it. But it can be effective.

William "Bill" Maher (b. 1956) American comedian, political commentator, critic, television host.
Interview with Joan Walsh, “Real talk with Bill Maher,” Salon (16 Feb 2007)
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Added on 16-Mar-16 | Last updated 16-Mar-16
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What we have learned from others becomes our own by reflection.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) American essayist, lecturer, poet
“Blotting Book 1,” (1826-1827)
 
Added on 27-Jan-16 | Last updated 27-Jan-16
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Are there no ideals more stirring than those of martial glory? Is this generation conscious of calls to the service of native land in ways no more worthy than the way of taking a musket and killing somebody? You ask, in the language of Prof. James, for a moral equivalent for war. A patriot needs only look about to find numberless causes that ought to warm the blood and stir the imagination. The dispelling of ignorance and the fostering of education, the investigation of disease and the searching out of remedies that will vanquish the giant ills that decimate the race, the inculcation of good feeling in the industrial world, the cause of the aged, the cause of the men and women who had so little chance — tell me, has war anything that beckons as these things beckon with alluring and compelling power? Whoso wants to share the heroism of battle let him join the fight against ignorance and disease — and the mad idea that war is necessary.

Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) American industrialist and philanthropist
“A Plea for Peace,” New York Times (7 Apr 1907)
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Added on 8-Jan-16 | Last updated 8-Jan-16
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Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you’ve believed in all your life aren’t true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.

Daniel F. Keyes (1927-2014) American author
Flowers for Algernon (novel) (1966)
 
Added on 2-Nov-15 | Last updated 2-Nov-15
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If we cannot trust woman with the knowledge of her own body, then I claim that two thousand years of Christian teaching has proved to be a failure.

Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) American birth control activist, sex educator, nurse
“The Morality of Birth Control,” speech, Park Theatre, New York (18 Nov 1921)
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One lesson the arts teach is that there can be more than one answer to a question and more than one solution to a problem; variability of outcome is okay. […] The arts teach children that their personal signature is important and that answers to questions and solutions to problems need not be identical. There is, in the arts, more than one interpretation to a musical score, more than one way to describe a painting or a sculpture, more than one appropriate form for a dance performance, more than one meaning for a poetic rendering of a person or a situation. In the arts diversity and variability are made central. That is one lesson that education can learn from the arts.

Elliot Eisner (1933-2014) Academic, researcher, professor of art and education
The Arts and the Creation of Mind, ch. 8 (2002)
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Variant: "The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution; questions can have more than one answer. If they do anything, the arts embrace diversity of outcome."
 
Added on 29-Jul-15 | Last updated 29-Jul-15
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Let us never be betrayed into saying we have finished our education; because that would mean we had stopped growing.

No picture available
Julia H. Gulliver (1856-1940) American philosopher, educator, academician
(Attributed)
 
Added on 20-Jul-15 | Last updated 20-Jul-15
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Teachers need our active support and encouragement. They are doing one of the most necessary and exacting jobs in the land. They are developing our most precious national resource: our children, our future citizens.

Dwight David Eisenhower (1890-1969) American general, US President (1953-61)
Speech, Centennial Celebration Banquet, National Education Association (4 Apr 1957)
 
Added on 9-Jul-15 | Last updated 9-Jul-15
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Philosophy directs us first to seek the goods of the mind, and the rest will either be supplied, or are not much wanted.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
Advancement of Learning, 8.2 (1605)
 
Added on 2-Jul-15 | Last updated 2-Jul-15
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It is really mortifying, sir, when a woman possessed of a common share of understanding considers the difference of education between the male and female sex, even in those families where education is attended to …. Nay, why should your sex wish for such a disparity in those whom they one day intend for companions and associates. Pardon me, sir, if I cannot help sometimes suspecting that this neglect arises in some measure from an ungenerous jealousy of rivals near the throne.

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) American correspondent, First Lady (1797-1801)
Letter to John Thaxter (15 Feb 1778)
 
Added on 19-Jun-15 | Last updated 19-Jun-15
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It is better to be a beggar than ignorant; for a beggar only wants money, but an ignorant person wants humanity.

Aristippus of Cyrene (c. 435 – c. 356 BC) Cyrenaic philosopher, Hedonist
(Attributed)
 
Added on 12-Jun-15 | Last updated 12-Jun-15
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If you complain of neglect of Education in sons, what shall I say with regard to daughters, who every day experience the want of it?

Abigail Adams (1744-1818) American correspondent, First Lady (1797-1801)
Letter to John Adams (14 Aug 1776)
 
Added on 12-Jun-15 | Last updated 12-Jun-15
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If thou hast Knowledge, let others light their Candle at thine.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, #1784 (1727)
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Often misattributed to Margaret Fuller or Winston Churchill, frequently in modern English, e.g., "If you have knowledge, let others light their candles at it" (or "in it" or "with it").

More discussion about this quotation:
 
Added on 9-Apr-15 | Last updated 7-Feb-24
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And so Jesus gave us a new norm of greatness. If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That’s a new definition of greatness. And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve. You don’t have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) American clergyman, civil rights leader, social activist, preacher
“The Drum Major Instinct,” sermon, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta (4 Feb 1968)
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Added on 3-Apr-15 | Last updated 7-Dec-15
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Knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge — broad, deep knowledge — is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man’s progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.

Helen Keller (1880-1968) American author and lecturer
The Story of My Life, pt. 1, ch. 20 (1903)
 
Added on 30-Mar-15 | Last updated 30-Mar-15
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“Now … if you trust in yourself …”
“Yes?”
“… and believe in your dreams …”
“Yes?”
“… and follow your star …” Miss Tick went on.
“Yes?”
“… you’ll still be beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren’t so lazy.”

Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
The Wee Free Men (2003)
 
Added on 13-Mar-15 | Last updated 13-Mar-15
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Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their lustre; and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #118 (6 Mar 1747)
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Added on 9-Feb-15 | Last updated 13-Oct-22
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There is nothing as stupid as an educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Weekly column (5 Jul 1931)
 
Added on 5-Feb-15 | Last updated 5-Feb-15
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Do not imagine that the knowledge, which I so much recommend to you, is confined to books, pleasing, useful, and necessary as that knowledge is: but I comprehend in it the great knowledge of the world, still more necessary than that of books. In truth, they assist one another reciprocally; and no man will have either perfectly, who has not both. The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world and not in a closet. Books alone will never teach it you; but they will suggest many things to your observation, which might, otherwise escape you; and your own observations upon mankind, when compared with those which you will find in books, will help you to fix the true point.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #112 (4 Oct 1746)
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Added on 2-Feb-15 | Last updated 13-Oct-22
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In proportion as the structure of a government gives forces to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
“Farewell Address” (17 Sep 1796)
 
Added on 27-Jan-15 | Last updated 27-Jul-15
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Perhaps the most fundamental value of a liberal education is that it makes life more interesting. It allows you to think things which do not occur to the less learned … it makes it less likely that you will be bored with life.

Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) American educator, diplomat
(Attributed)
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Added on 26-Jan-15 | Last updated 26-Jan-15
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The great business of study is to form a mind adapted and adequate to all times and all occasions; to which all nature is then laid open, and which may be said to possess the key of her inexhaustible riches.

Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792) British painter, critic
“Discourse Eleven” (10 Dec 1782)
 
Added on 15-Jan-15 | Last updated 15-Jan-15
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Just as eating contrary to the inclination is injurious to the health, so study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Leonardo da Vinci, artist
Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian artist, engineer, scientist, polymath
Note-books, 1 [tr. McCurdy (1908)]
 
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Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #133 (11 Dec 1747)
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Added on 5-Jan-15 | Last updated 10-Oct-22
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Universities should be safe havens where ruthless examination of realities will not be distorted by the aim to please or inhibited by the risk of displeasure.

Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919-1988) American educator, diplomat
Inaugural address as President of Yale University (11 Apr 1964)
 
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Let the great book of the world be your principal study.

Lord Chesterfield (1694-1773) English statesman, wit [Philip Dormer Stanhope]
Letter to his son, #249 (7 Apr 1751)
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Added on 18-Dec-14 | Last updated 18-Oct-22
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Crafty men condemn studies; simple men admire them; and wise men use them.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) English philosopher, scientist, author, statesman
“Of Studies,” Essays, No. 50 (1625)
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Added on 4-Dec-14 | Last updated 25-Mar-22
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“But do you really mean, sir,” said Peter, “that there could be other worlds — all over the place, just round the corner — like that?”

“Nothing is more probable,” said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, “I wonder what they do teach them at these schools.”

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) English writer, literary scholar, lay theologian [Clive Staples Lewis]
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (1950)
 
Added on 3-Dec-14 | Last updated 3-Dec-14
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The education of our people should be a lifelong process by which we continue to feed new vigor into the lifestream of the Nation through intelligent, reasoned decisions. Let us not think of education only in terms of its costs, but rather in terms of the infinite potential of the human mind that can be realized through education. Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our Nation.

John F. Kennedy (1917-1963) US President (1961-63)
“Proclamation 3422 – American Education Week, 1961” (25 Jul 1961)
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Added on 11-Aug-14 | Last updated 11-Aug-14
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Deep learning will make you acceptable to the learned; but it is only an obliging and easy behaviour, and entertaining conversation, that will make you agreeable to all companies.

James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
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Added on 7-Aug-14 | Last updated 7-Aug-14
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Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Comment

In James Boswell, Tour to the Hebrides (1785).
 
Added on 25-Jul-14 | Last updated 25-Jul-14
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We seem to have forgotten that the expression “a liberal education” originally meant among the Romans one worthy of free men; while the learning of trades and professions by which to get your livelihood merely, was considered worthy of slaves only.

Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American philosopher and writer
“The Last Days of John Brown” (1860)
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Also known as "A Plea for Captain John Brown".
 
Added on 15-Jul-14 | Last updated 15-Jul-14
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Wit without humanity degenerates into bitterness. Learning without prudence into pedantry.

James Burgh (1714-1775) British politician and writer
The Dignity of Human Nature, Sec. 5 “Miscellaneous Thoughts on Prudence in Conversation” (1754)
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Added on 26-Jun-14 | Last updated 26-Jun-14
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You can’t learn to write in college. It’s a very bad place for writers because the teachers always think they know more than you do — and they don’t.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012) American writer, futurist, fabulist
Interview with Sam Geller, “The Art of Fiction, No. 203,” The Paris Review (Spring 2010)
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Added on 2-Jun-14 | Last updated 2-Jun-14
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The school is an invaluable adjunct to the home, but it is a wretched substitute for it.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919) American politician, statesman, conservationist, writer, US President (1901-1909)
Speech, Lansing, Michigan (31 May 1907)
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Added on 11-Dec-13 | Last updated 11-Dec-13
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Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990) American billionaire
(Attributed)
 
Added on 10-Dec-13 | Last updated 10-Dec-13
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If children had teachers for judgment and eloquence as they have for languages, if their memory was exercised less than their energy or their natural genius, if instead of deadening their vivacity of mind we tried to elevate the free scope and impulses of their souls, what might not result from a fine disposition? As it is, we forget that courage, or love of truth and glory are the virtues that matter most in youth; and our one endeavor is to subdue our children’s spirits, in order to teach them that dependence and suppleness are the first laws of success in life.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
 
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Cultivated mind is the guardian genius of Democracy, and while guided and controlled by virtue, the noblest attribute of man. It is the only dictator that freemen acknowledge, and the only security which freemen desire.

Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (1798-1859) Texas politician, poet, diplomat, soldier
First Message to Congress of the Republic of Texas, Houston (21 Dec 1838)

Frequently quoted by Lyndon Johnson, often paraphrased as "The educated mind is the guardian genius of democracy. It is the only dictator that free men recognize, and the only ruler that free men desire." Rendered in Latin ("Disciplina praesidium civitatis"), it is the motto of the University of Texas.
 
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Children are taught to fear and obey; the avarice, pride, or timidity of parents teaches children economy, arrogance, or submission. They are also encouraged to be imitators, a course to which they are already only too much inclined. No one thinks of making them original, courageous, independent.

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715-1747) French moralist, essayist, soldier
Reflections and Maxims [Réflexions et maximes] (1746) [tr. Lee (1903)]
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Added on 21-Nov-13 | Last updated 21-Nov-13
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When one sees the number and variety of institutions which exist for the purposes of education, and the vast throng of scholars and masters, one might fancy the human race to be very much concerned about truth and wisdom. But here, too, appearances are deceptive. The masters teach in order to gain money, and strive, not after wisdom, but the outward show and reputation of it; and the scholars learn, not for the sake of knowledge and insight, but to be able to chatter and give themselves airs.

[Wenn man die Vielen und Mannigfaltigen Anstalten zum Lehren und Lernen un das so große Gedränge von Schülern und Meistern sieht, könnte man glauben, daß es dem Menschengeschlechte gar sehr um Einsicht und Wahrheit zu thun sei. Aber auch hier trügt der Schein. Jene lehren, um Geld zu verdienen und streben nicht nach Weisheit, sondern nach dem Schein und Kredit derselben: und Diese lernen nicht, um Kenntniß und Einsicht zu erlangen; sondern um schwätzen zu können nd sich ein Ansehn zu geben Alle dreißig Jahre nämlich tritt so ein sondern um schwätzen zu können und sich ein Ansehn zu geben.]

Arthur Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher
Parerga and Paralipomena, Vol. 2, ch. 21 “On Learning and the Learned [Über Gelehrsamkeit und Gelehrte],” § 244 (1851) [tr. Saunders (1890)]
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(Source (German)). Alternate translation:

When we see the different institutions for teaching and learning and the vast throng of pupil and masters, we might imagine that the human race was very much bent on insight and truth; but here appearances are deceptive. The masters teach in order to earn money and aspire not to wisdom, but to the semblance and reputation thereof; the pupils learn not to acquire knowledge and insight, but to be able to talk and chat and to give themselves airs.
[tr. Payne (1974)]

 
Added on 23-Oct-13 | Last updated 5-Oct-22
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If nature has made any one thing less susceptible, than all others, of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an Idea; which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the reciever cannot dispossess himself of it. it’s peculiar character too is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who recieves an idea from me, recieves instruction himself, without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, recieves light without darkening me.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Isaac McPherson (13 Aug 1813)
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Added on 5-Sep-13 | Last updated 10-Jul-22
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What an effort, my dear Sir, of bigotry in Politics & Religion have we gone through. The barbarians really flattered themselves they should even be able to bring back the times of Vandalism, when ignorance put every thing into the hands of power & priestcraft. All advances in science were proscribed as innovations. They pretended to praise & encourage education, but it was to be vain the education of our ancestors. We were to look backwards not forwards for improvement, the President himself declaring in one of his answers to addresses that we were never to expect to go beyond them in real science. This was the real ground of all the attacks on you: those who live by mystery & charlatanerie, fearing you would render them useless by simplifying the Christian philosophy, the most sublime & benevolent, but most perverted system that ever shone on man, endeavored to crush your well earnt, & well deserved fame.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) American political philosopher, polymath, statesman, US President (1801-09)
Letter to Joseph Priestley (21 Mar 1801)
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Added on 1-Aug-13 | Last updated 14-Jul-22
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He who has imagination without learning has wings and no feet.

[Celui qui a de l’imagination sans érudition, a des ailes et n’a pas de pieds.]

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist, philosopher, essayist, poet
Pensées [Thoughts], ch. 4 “De la Nature des Esprits [On the Nature of Minds],” ¶ 39 (1850 ed.) [tr. Attwell (1896), ¶ 53]
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(Source (French)). Alternate translations:

The man of imagination without learning has wings and no feet.
[tr. Lyttelton (1899), ch. 3, ¶ 16]

The man of imagination who is unlearned has wings and no feet.
[tr. Collins (1928), ch. 4]

 
Added on 1-Apr-13 | Last updated 11-Dec-23
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One Month in the School of Affliction will teach thee more than the great Precepts of Aristotle in seven years; for thou canst never judge rightly of human Affairs, unless thou hast first felt the Blows, and found out the Deceits of Fortune.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Introductio ad Prudentiam, #2749 (1731 ed.)
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Added on 18-Mar-13 | Last updated 26-Jan-21
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Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
The Rambler, #2 (24 Mar 1750)
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Added on 11-Jan-13 | Last updated 25-Jun-22
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There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of Science and Literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of publick happiness.

George Washington (1732-1799) American military leader, Founding Father, US President (1789-1797)
State of the Union (8 Jan 1790)
 
Added on 7-Sep-12 | Last updated 28-Jul-15
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A Little Learning misleadeth, and a great deal often stupifieth the Understanding.

George Savile, Marquis of Halifax (1633-1695) English politician and essayist
“False Learning,” Political, Moral, and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (1750)
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Added on 26-Jul-11 | Last updated 30-Jan-20
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A handfull of good life is better then a bushell of learning.

George Herbert (1593-1633) Welsh priest, orator, poet.
Jacula Prudentum, or Outlandish Proverbs, Sentences, &c. (compiler), # 3 (1640 ed.)
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Added on 19-Jul-11 | Last updated 29-Feb-24
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Learning makes a Man fit Company for himself.

Thomas Fuller (1654-1734) English physician, preacher, aphorist, writer
Gnomologia: Adages and Proverbs, #3163 (1732)
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Added on 21-Jun-11 | Last updated 26-Jan-21
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