Thelwall thought it very unfair to influence a child’s mind by inculcating any opinions before it had come to years of discretion to choose for itself.—I showed him my garden, and I told him it was my botanical garden.—“How so?” said he; “it is covered with weeds.”—“O,” I replied, “that is only because it has not yet come to its age of discretion and choice.—The weeds, you see, have taken the liberty to grow, and I thought it unfair in me to prejudice the soil toward roses and strawberries.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
—Unknown
He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
Every man who rises above the common level has received two educations: the first from his teachers; the second, more personal and important, from himself.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American’s capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
It is by education I learn to do by choice, what other men do by the constraint of fear.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
A good newspaper and Bible in every house, a good schoolhouse in every district, and a church in every neighborhood, all appreciated as they deserve, are the chief support of virtue, morality, civil liberty, and religion.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
A human being is not attaining his full heights until he is educated.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
The colleges, while they provide us with libraries, furnish no professors of books; and I think no chair is so much needed.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The problem of education is two fold: first to know, and then to utter. Everyone who lives any semblance of an inner life thinks more nobly and profoundly than he speaks.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94) Scottish Novelist
Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket.—Do not pull it out merely to show that you have one.—If asked what o’clock it is, tell it; but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.
—Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) American Educator
Universities are of course hostile to geniuses, which, seeing and using ways of their own, discredit the routine: as churches and monasteries persecute youthful saints.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Neither piety, virtue, nor liberty can long flourish in a community where the education of youth is neglected.
—Peter Cooper
A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.
—John Lubbock (1834–1913) English Politician, Biologist
The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
The first duty of a lecturer is to hand you after an hour’s discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks and keep on the mantelpiece forever.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
Activity is the only road to knowledge.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
I wonder anybody does anything at Oxford but dream and remember, the place is so beautiful. One almost expects the people to sing instead of speaking. It is all like an opera.
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish Poet, Dramatist
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one’s mind a pleasant place in which to spend one’s time.
—Sydney J. Harris (1917–86) American Essayist, Drama Critic
What you don’t know can hurt you.
—Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) English Statesman, Man of Letters
Modern education has devoted itself to the teaching of impudence, and then we complain that we can no longer control our mobs.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies, seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
—Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American Playwright, Entrepreneur
Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.
—Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Polymath, Painter, Sculptor, Inventor, Architect
You can always tell a Harvard man, but you can’t tell him much.
—Unknown
I am willing to admit that some people might live there for years, or even a lifetime, so protected that they never sense the sweet stench of corruption that is all around them—the keen, thin scent of decay that pervades everything and accuses with a terrible accusation the superficial youthfulness, the abounding undergraduate noise, that fills those ancient buildings.
—Thomas Merton (1915–68) American Trappist Monk
The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Don’t think you can attain total awareness and whole enlightenment without proper discipline and practice. This is egomania. Appropriate rituals channel your emotions and life energy toward the light. Without the discipline to practice them, you will tumble constantly backward into darkness.
—Laozi (fl.6th Century BCE) Chinese Philosopher, Sage
Education is the knowledge of how to use the whole of oneself. Many men use but one or two faculties out of the score with which they are endowed. A man is educated who knows how to make a tool of every faculty—how to open it, how to keep it sharp, and how to apply it to all practical purposes.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
Education is…[A process] which makes one rogue cleverer than another.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students.
—John Ciardi (1916–86) American Poet, Teacher, Etymologist, Translator
How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
The fiery trials through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the last generation.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
In my early life, and probably even today, it is not sufficiently understood that a child’s education should include at least a rudimentary grasp of religion, sex, and money. Without a basic knowledge of these three primary facts in a normal human being’s life—subjects which stir the emotions, create events and opportunities, and if they do not wholly decide must greatly influence an individual’s personality—no human being’s education can have a safe foundation.
—Phyllis Bottome (1884–1963) British Novelist, Short Story Writer, Psychoanalysis
What we become depends on what we read after all the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is the collection of books.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself … you rise from the table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
My plan of instruction is extremely simple and limited. They learn, on week-days, such coarse works as may fit them for servants. I allow of no writing for the poor. My object is not to make fanatics, but to train up the lower classes in habits of industry and piety.
—Hannah More
Education is…One of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
—Bertrand A. Russell (1872–1970) British Philosopher, Mathematician, Social Critic
Let us describe the education of our men. What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
An educational system isn’t worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn’t teach them how to make a life.
—Unknown
It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
—James Baldwin (1924–87) American Novelist, Social Critic
It’s the less-bright students who make teachers teach better.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
The poorest education that teaches self-control, is better than the best that neglects it.
—Anonymous