Quotes about education

A collection of quotes on the topic of education.

„I don’t believe that God chose you, and blessed you so that you could heap those blessings up upon yourself. I believe God chose you, and you, and you, and every one of you others because He wants to make a difference in this world. And you know what? what I think is scary about God is He didn’t come up with any ‘Plan B.’ That He left the Church here, and the Church is the only group of people, and the Church is the only institution in the world that can bring about a change. This government cannot do it, so stop depending on the government. Educational systems cannot do it, so stop trusting educational systems. The Church was chosen by God to make a difference.“

— Rich Mullins American christian musician 1955 - 1997

In Concert

Dependency, Change, Thinking, World

„Worldview" is not based on books; it is an internal form, which at times in a person with little education is expressed much more brightly, than in some other "intellectual" or scientist.“

— Julius Evola Italian philosopher and esotericist 1898 - 1974

Personality, Time, Books

„The real struggle is not between East and West, or capitalism and communism, but between education and propaganda.“

— Martin Buber German Jewish Existentialist philosopher and theologian 1878 - 1965

As quoted in Encounter with Martin Buber (1972) by Aubrey Hodes, p. 135

Communication

„I'd like to know why well-educated idiots keep apologizing for lazy and complaining people who think the world owes them a living.“

— John Wayne American film actor 1907 - 1979

Thinking, World, People

„Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking. I never had any formal education—not even a nursery school certificate. But sometimes I know more than Ph. D. s because as a military man I know how to act. I am a man of action.“

— Idi Amin third president of Uganda 1925 - 2003

Appears in Barbet Schroeder (1974), General Idi Amin Dada: A Self Portrait.

Thinking, Way, School, People

„The teacher is of course an artist, but being an artist does not mean that he or she can make the profile, can shape the students. What the educator does in teaching is to make it possible for the students to become themselves.“

— Paulo Freire educator and philosopher 1921 - 1997

Source: We Make the Road by Walking: Conversations on Education and Social Change

Teachers

„Education is the key to unlocking the world, a passport to freedom.“

— Oprah Winfrey American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist 1954

Freedom, World

„I have a really interesting political point of view, and it’s not always something I say too loud at dinner tables here, but you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal. You can’t. I wouldn’t wish that experience on anyone else, but it was very, very, very educational for me and has informed my proclivities and politics ever since.“

— Robert Downey Jr. American actor 1965

Quoted in David Carr, "Been Up, Been Down. Now? Super." http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/movies/20carr.html?_r=4&pagewanted=2&8dpc&oref=slogin&, New York Times (2008-04-20)

Night, Understanding

„… what is there in the subject of psychology to demand the attention of the manager?
Psychology, in the popular phrase, is " the study of the mind." It has for years been included in the training of all teachers, and has been one of the first steps for the student of philosophy; but it has not, usually, been included among the studies of the young scientific or engineering student, or of any students in other lines than Philosophy and Education. This, not because its value as a " culture subject " was not understood, but because the course of the average student is so crowded with technical preparation necessary to his life work, and because the practical value of psychology has not been recognized. It is well recognized that the teacher must understand the working of the mind in order best to impart his information in that way that will enable the student to grasp it most readily. It was not recognized that every man going out into the world needs all the knowledge that he can get as to the working of the human mind in order not only to give but to receive information with the least waste and expenditure of energy, nor was it recognized that in the industrial, as well as the academic world, almost every man is a teacher.“

— Lillian Gilbreth American psychologist and industrial engineer 1878 - 1972

Source: Psychology of management, 1914, p. 1-2

Training, Teachers, Study, Knowledge

„This knotted dilemma lies at the center of women's development. How can girls both enter and stay outside of, be educated in and then try to change, what for millennia has been a man's world?“

— Carol Gilligan American feminist, ethicist, and psychologist 1936

Source: Joining the Resistance

Change, Girl, World, Women

„You have given the great honour … to hundreds of millions of children in the world who are deprived of their childhood and health and education, and fundamental right to freedom. It is a great moment for all those children.“

— Kailash Satyarthi Indian children's rights activist 1954

Interview with Nobel Media (2014)
Context: You have given the great honour … to hundreds of millions of children in the world who are deprived of their childhood and health and education, and fundamental right to freedom. It is a great moment for all those children. … I am quite hopeful and rather sure that this will help in giving bigger visibility and attention to the cause of children who are most neglected and most deprived. This will also inspire individuals, activists, governments, business houses, corporate to work hand in hand to fight this out. And I am quite hopeful about it, that the recognition of this issue will help in mobilising bigger support for the cause.

Childhood, Freedom, World, Health

„Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.“

— W.B. Yeats Irish poet and playwright 1865 - 1939

Light

„Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.“

— Abbie Hoffman American political and social activist 1936 - 1989

Source: Soon to be a Major Motion Picture (1980), p. 64.
Context: My critique of democracy begins and ends with this point. Kids must be educated to disrespect authority or else democracy is a farce.

Democracy

„Being a role model is the most powerful form of educating… too often fathers neglect it because they get so caught up in making a living they forget to make a life.“

— John Wooden American basketball coach 1910 - 2010

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

Forgetting, Life

„We create organizations to serve us, but somehow they also force us to serve them. Sometimes it feels as if our institutions have run out of control, like the machinery of Charlie Chaplin's film Modem Times. Why we should become slaves to our servants… A society of organizations is one in which organizations enter our lives as influential forces in a great many ways — in how we work, what we eat, how we get educated and cured of our illnesses, how we get entertained, and how our ideas are shaped. The ways in which we try to control our organization and our organization in return try to control us become major issues in the lives of all of us.“

— Henry Mintzberg Canadian busines theorist 1939

Henry Mintzberg (1989) Mintzberg on management: inside our strange world of organizations. p. 301. As cited in: R. van den Nieuwenhof (2003) 2 strategie: omgaan met de omgeving. p. 36

Time, Idea, Feeling, Way