It used to take me all vacation to grow a new hide in place of the one they flogged off me during the school term.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
People commonly educate their children as they build their houses, according to some plan they think beautiful, without considering whether it is suited to the purposes for which they are designed.
—Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762) English Aristocrat, Poet, Novelist, Writer
I am entirely certain that twenty years from now we will look back at education as it is practiced in most schools today and wonder that we could have tolerated anything so primitive.
—John W. Gardner (1912–2002) American Activist
A child educated only at school is an uneducated child.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
No amount of charters, direct primaries, or short ballots will make a democracy out of an illiterate people.
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974) American Journalist, Political Commentator
A republican government is in a hundred points weaker than one that is autocratic; but in this one point it is the strongest that ever existed—it has educated a race of men that are men.
—Henry Ward Beecher (1813–87) American Clergyman, Writer
The whole object of education is, or should be, to develop mind. The mind should be a thing that works. It should be able to pass judgment on events as they arise, make decisions.
—Sherwood Anderson (1876–1941) American Novelist, Short Story Writer
The world is run by C students.
—Unknown
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
What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
America’s founding fathers did not intend to take religion out of education. Many of the nation’s greatest universities were founded by evangelists and religious leaders; but many of these have lost the founders concept and become secular institutions. Because of this attitude, secular education is stumbling and floundering.
—Billy Graham (1918–91) American Baptist Religious Leader
I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power.
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) American Head of State, Lawyer
It don’t make much difference what you study, so long as you don’t like it.
—Finley Peter Dunne (1867–1936) American Humorist, Journalist, Creator of “Mr. Dooley”
Boys and girls should be taught to think first of others in material things; they should be infected with the wisdom to know that in making smooth the way of all lies the road to their own health and happiness.
—John Galsworthy (1867–1933) English Novelist, Playwright
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in. That everyone may receive at least a moderate education appears to be an objective of vital importance.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
‘Tis well enough for a servant to be bred at an University. But the education is a little too pedantic for a gentleman.
—William Congreve (1670–1729) English Playwright, Poet
The greatest education in the world is watching the masters at work.
—Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American Singer-Songwriter
The child who desires education will be bettered by it; the child who dislikes it disgraced.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all.
—Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian-American Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
Education is…[A process] which makes one rogue cleverer than another.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
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) Greek Philosopher, Mathematician, 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
My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects.
—Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) American Educational Philosopher
Education is the art of making man ethical.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) German Philosopher
Education consists of example and love—nothing else.
—Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) Swiss Educator
Our attitude towards ourselves should be “to be satiable in learning” and towards others “to be tireless in teaching.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chinese Statesman
Nine tenths of education is encouragement.
—Anatole France (1844–1924) French Novelist
Don’t let school interfere with your education.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.
—Joseph Stalin (1878–1953) Soviet Leader
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