“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

—  Mark Twain

Source: Notebook
Source: Mark Twain's Notebook (1935), p. 346

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update Sept. 27, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned." by Mark Twain?
Mark Twain photo
Mark Twain 637
American author and humorist 1835–1910

Related quotes

Paul Valéry photo

“The deeper education consists in unlearning one's first education.”

Paul Valéry (1871–1945) French poet, essayist, and philosopher

Source: An Anthology

Alfred de Zayas photo

“Education is necessary to unlearn privilege, unlearn exclusion, unlearn discrimination, unlearn prejudice, unlearn war.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

Interim report of the Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, Alfred Maurice de Zayas http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/IntOrder/A.67.277_en.pdf.
2012

Mary McCarthy photo

“A good deal of education consists of unlearning — the breaking of bad habits, as with a tennis serve. This was emphatically true of a Vassar education: where other colleges aimed at development, bringing out what was already there like a seed waiting to sprout, Vassar remade a girl. Vassar was transformational.”

Mary McCarthy (1912–1989) American writer

Source: How I Grew (1987), Ch. 8

Mark Twain photo

“Life does not consist mainly, or even largely, of facts or happenings. It consist mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever flowing through one's head.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Walter Rauschenbusch photo

“Primitive religions consisted mainly in the worship of the powers of nature.”

Walter Rauschenbusch (1861–1918) United States Baptist theologian

...the essential thing in religion was not morality, but the ceremonial method of placating the god, securing his gifts, and ascertaining his wishes. He might even be pleased best by immoral actions, by the immolation of human victims, by the sacrifice of woman's chastity, or by the burning of the first born.
Source: Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Ch.1 The Historical Roots of Christianity the Hebrew Prophets, p. 4

Alvin Toffler photo

“By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education.”

Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) American writer

Future Shock (1970), ch. 18
Source: Powershift: Knowledge, Wealth, and Power at the Edge of the 21st Century

Robert Maynard Hutchins photo

“Educators ought to know better than their pupils what an education is. If the educators do not, they have wasted their lives. The art of teaching consists in large part of interesting people in things that ought to interest them, but do not. The task of educators is to discover what an education is and then to invent the methods of interesting their students in it.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

G. K. Chesterton photo

“For my part, I should be inclined to suggest that the chief object of education should be to restore simplicity. If you like to put it so, the chief object of education is not to learn things; nay, the chief object of education is to unlearn things.”

G. K. Chesterton book All Things Considered

"An Essay on Two Cities"
All Things Considered (1908)

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya photo

“Progress in every country depends mainly on the education of its people. Without education, we are a nation of children. The difference between one man and another, apart from birth and social position, consists in the extent of knowledge, general and practical, acquired by him. We may safely assume that man in all countries within certain limits start with the same degree of intelligence. A civilised nation is distinguished from an uncivilised one by the extent of its acquired intelligence and skill.”

Mokshagundam Visveshvaraya (1860–1962) Indian engineer, scholar, statesman and the Diwan of Mysore

Quoted in The Most Celebrated Indian Engineer:Mokshagundam Visvesvaraya, 22 November 2013, Official web site of Government of India: Vigyan Prasar http://www.vigyanprasar.gov.in/dream/feb2000/article1.htm,

Paul Karl Feyerabend photo

“The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.”

Paul Karl Feyerabend (1924–1994) Austrian-born philosopher of science

Related topics