There is nothing so stupid as the educated man if you get him off the thing he was educated in.
—Will Rogers (1879–1935) American Actor, Rancher, Humorist
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
—Aristotle (384BCE–322BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Scholar
To waken interest and kindle enthusiasm is the sure way to teach easily and successfully.
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
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
I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
—Wilson Mizner (1876–1933) American Playwright, Entrepreneur
Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern but impossible to enslave.
—Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) Scottish Jurist, Politician
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
—Unknown
Education gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words, images, and illustrations; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd.
—Sydney Smith (1771–1845) English Clergyman, Essayist, Wit
Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
—Abigail Adams (1744–1818) American First Lady
To teach is to learn twice.
—Joseph Joubert (1754–1824) French Writer, Moralist
Without education, you’re not going anywhere in this world.
—Malcolm X (1925–65) American Civil Rights Leader
The medieval university looked backwards; it professed to be a storehouse of old knowledge. The modern university looks forward, and is a factory of new knowledge.
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95) English Biologist
Education is a wonderful thing. If you couldn’t sign your name you’d have to pay cash.
—Rita Mae Brown (b.1944) American Writer, Feminist
Education is the process of driving a set of prejudices down your throat.
—Martin H. Fischer
What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch of a free, meandering brook.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Examinations are formidable even to the best prepared, for the greatest fool may ask more than the wisest man can answer.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
Early instruction in truth will best keep out error. Some one has well said, “Fill the bushel with wheat, and you may defy the devil to fill it with tares.”
—Tryon Edwards American Theologian
The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.
—John F. Kennedy (1917–63) American Head of State, Journalist
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
A learned man is an idler who kills time with study. Beware of his false knowledge : it is more dangerous than ignorance.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.
—Neil Postman (1931–2003) American Educator, Media Theorist, Social Critic
We are living in 1937, and our universities, I suggest, are not half-way out of the fifteenth century. We have made hardly any changes in our conception of university organization, education, graduation, for a century—for several centuries. The three or four year’ course of lectures, the bachelor who know some, the master who knows most, the doctor who knows all, are ideas that have come down unimpaired from the Middle Ages. Nowadays no one should end his learning while he lives and these university degrees are preposterous. It is true that we have multiplied universities greatly in the past hundred years, but we seem to have multiplied them altogether too much upon the old pattern.
—H. G. Wells (1866–1946) English Novelist, Historian, Social Thinker
Nature and education are somewhat similar. The latter transforms man, and in so doing creates a second nature.
—Democritus (c.460–c.370 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
—Gail Godwin (b.1937) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
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
Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing. The rest is mere sheep-herding.
—Ezra Pound (1885-1972) American Poet, Translator, Critic