Quotes on Education, Knowledge, Learning, and Thinking.
"He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice." -Albert Einstein
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
Logic: The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. ~Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) - The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
"I wash my hands of those who imagine chattering to be knowledge, silence to be ignorance, and affection to be art." -Kahlil Gibran, "A Handful of Sand on the Shore"
"Today, if you are not confused, you are just not thinking clearly." -U. Peter
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge." -Bertrand Russell
"He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened." -Lao Tzi, Tao Te Ching
"Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently." -Anon.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.-Edward Everett
Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances. -George Eliot
We do not learn by inference and deduction and the application of mathematics to philosophy, but by direct intercourse and sympathy. ~Henry David Thoreau
All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing. -Maurice Maeterlinck
About all some parents accomplish in life is to send a child to Harvard. -Anonymous
A student by definition doesn't know what he or she doesn't know. -Michael Gorman
Education is a method whereby one acquires a higher grade of prejudices. ~Laurence J. Peter
Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. -Will Durant
Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school. -Albert Einstein
Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) - The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right ~Thomas Paine - Common Sense
A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. -William James (1842-1910)
How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. -Alexandre Dumas
Better to understand a little than to misunderstand a lot. -Anonymous
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before," Bokonon tells us. "He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way. ~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. - Cat's Cradle
Boswell: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind. Johnson: No, Sir, stark insensibility. -Samuel Johnson
Build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it. -George Bernard Shaw
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -Carl Sagan
Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people. The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing. -Konrad Lorenz
Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week. -George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers. -Khalil Gibran
I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. -Mark Twain (1835-1910)
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocrities. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence. -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
I never make stupid mistakes. Only very, very clever ones. -John Peel - The Doctor
I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed person. -Pogo , character in "Pogo," comic strip by Walt Kelly
I think, therefore I am - I think. -Howard Schneider
Ideas won't keep; something must be done about them. -Alfred North Whitehead
If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience -George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. -Isaac Asimov
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. -Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
In the republic of mediocrity genius is dangerous. -Robert G. Ingersoll
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. -Arthur C. Clarke
Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. [...] The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role. -William Torrey Harris , U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889
The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a 'C', the idea must be feasible. Yale University management professor in response to student Fred Smith's paper proposing reliable overnight delivery service (Smith went on to found Federal Express Corp.)
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome indecision of knowledge. -Anonymous
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. -William James (1842-1910)
The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything. -Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)
The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion. -Arnold H. Glasow
The purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place to spend one's leisure. -Anonymous
The purpose of a liberal education is to make you philosophical enough to accept the fact that you will never make much money. -Anonymous
There's a fine line between genius and insanity. I have erased this line -Oscar Levant
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. -Hector Louis Berlioz
When a true genius appears in the world you may know him by this sign: that all the dunces are in confederacy against him. -Johnathan Swift
We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history. -Anonymous
"The well-bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves." - Oscar Wilde
"All human wisdom can be summed up in two words… wait and hope." ~Alexander Dumas
Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding. -Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) - The Devil's Dictionary, 1911
The price of wisdom is eternal thought. --Frank Birch
One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say. ~Will Durant
The fewer the facts, the stronger the opinion. ~Arnold H. Glasow
Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen. ~Albert Einstein
"I have learned that to live -to even draw breath- is to bargain with evil, vulgarity, and death. Dreamer's don't live very long." ~J. Robert King
"Philosophy is a study that lets us be unhappy more intelligently." -Anon.
Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. -Edward Everett
Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life can understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances. -George Eliot
It has yet to be proven that intelligence has any survival value. -Arthur C. Clarke
It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. -Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. -Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them. -Isaac Asimov
If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. -Pope John Paul I
Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. -Hector Louis Berlioz
We learn from history that we do not learn anything from history. -Anonymous
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book. -Groucho Marx (1895-1977)
Its failings notwithstanding, there is much to be said in favor of journalism in that by giving us the opinion of the uneducated, it keeps us in touch with the ignorance of the community. -Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)
"Get the facts first. You can distort them later." - Mark Twain
"Great minds have purposes; little minds have wishes." - Washington Irving
"Education is the best defence against the media."
"Is there anyone so wise as to learn from the experience of others?" -Voltaire
"Si Hoc Legere Scis Nimium Eruditionis Habes." (trans: "If you can read this you're overeducated")
"By the age of six the average child will have completed the basic American education.... From television, the child will have learned how to pick a lock, commit a fairly elaborate bank holdup, prevent wetness all day long, get the laundry twice as white, and kill people with a variety of sophisticated armaments." -Russell Baker, 'School vs. Education'
Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. [...] The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role. -William Torrey Harris , U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889
