He who opens a school door, closes a prison.
—Victor Hugo (1802–85) French Novelist
The elementary school must assume as its sublime and most solemn responsibility the task of teaching every child in it to read. Any school that does not accomplish this has failed.
—William Bennett (b.1943) American Politician, Political Theorist, Government Official
Of all cursed places under the sun, where the hungriest soul can hardly pick up a few grains of knowledge, a girls boarding-school is the worst. They are called finishing schools, and the name tells accurately what they are. They finish everything but imbecility and weakness, and that they cultivate. They are nicely adapted machines for experimenting on the question, “Into how little space a human being can be crushed?” I have seen some souls so compressed that they would have fitted into a small thimble, and found room to move there—wide room. A woman who has been for many years at one of those places carries the mark of the beast on her till she dies.
—Olive Schreiner (1855–1920) South African Writer, Feminist
The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
I have found it; I have discovered the cause of all the misfortunes which befell him. A public school, Joseph, was the cause of all the calamities which he afterwards suffered. Public schools are the nurseries of all vice and immorality.
—Henry Fielding (1707–54) English Novelist, Dramatist
You send your child to the schoolmaster, but ’tis the schoolboys who educate him.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
There are only two places in the world where time takes precedence over the job to be done. School and prison.
—William Glasser (b.1925) American Psychiatrist, Writer
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
No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.
—Plato (428 BCE–347 BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, Educator
Minerva House was “a finishing establishment for young ladies,” where some twenty girls of the ages from thirteen to nineteen inclusive, acquired a smattering of everything and a knowledge of nothing.
—Charles Dickens (1812–70) English Novelist
I was asked to memorize what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner.
—Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) English Occultist, Mystic, Magician
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
You can’t learn in school what the world is going to do next year.
—Henry Ford (1863–1947) American Businessperson, Engineer
If there were no schools to take the children away from home part of the time, the insane asylums would be filled with mothers
—E. W. Howe (1853–1937) American Novelist, Editor
What we must look for here is, firstly, religious and moral principles; secondly, gentlemanly conduct; thirdly, intellectual ability.
—Thomas Arnold (1795–1842) English Educationalist
Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Failure is a school in which the truth always grows strong.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
You send a boy to school in order to make friends – the right sort.
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English Novelist
You can acquire a lot of knowledge without ever going to school.
—William Glasser (b.1925) American Psychiatrist, Writer
Experience keeps a dear school; but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book side for everything.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.
—Edmund Burke (1729–97) British Philosopher, Statesman
The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.
—Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) American Head of State, Lawyer
Jails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more you must have of the former.
—Horace Mann (1796–1859) American Educator, Politician, Educationalist
My education was dismal. I went to a series of schools for mentally disturbed teachers
—Woody Allen (b.1935) American Film Actor, Director
School-days, I believe, are the unhappiest in the whole span of human existence. They are full of dull, unintelligible tasks, new and unpleasant ordinances, brutal violations of common sense and common decency. It doesn’t take a reasonably bright boy long to discover that most of what is rammed into him is nonsense, and that no one really cares very much whether he learns it or not.
—H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) American Journalist, Literary Critic
A school without football is in danger of deteriorating into a medieval study hall.
—Vince Lombardi, Jr. (1913–70) American Football Player, Coach
Thank goodness I was never sent to school it would have rubbed off some of the originality.
—Beatrix Potter (1866–1943) British Children’s Author, Illustrator
A private school has all the faults of a public school without any of its compensations.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.
—Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian Physician, Educator
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
Were I to deduce any system from my feelings on leaving Eton, it might be called The Theory of Permanent Adolescence. It is the theory that the experiences undergone by boys at the great public schools, their glories and disappointments, are so intense as to dominate their lives and to arrest their development. From these it results that the greater part of the ruling class remains adolescent, school-minded, self-conscious, cowardly, sentimental, and in the last analysis homosexual.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
What students lack in school is an intellectual relationship or conversation with the teacher.
—William Glasser (b.1925) American Psychiatrist, Writer
In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice. Then he made school boards.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
—George Orwell (1903–50) English Novelist, Journalist
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
Some people unable to go to school were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors.
—Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American Poet
In the schoolroom her quick mind had taken readily that strong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves ignorance from any painful sense of limpness.
—George Eliot (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
That’s the public-school system all over. They may kick you out, but they never let you down.
—Evelyn Waugh (1903–66) British Novelist, Essayist, Biographer
Those who get lost on the way to school will never find their way through life
—German Proverb