Quotes about education
page 2

Shahrukh Khan photo
Emmeline Pankhurst photo
Novalis photo

“Every stage of education begins with childhood. That is why the most educated person on earth so much resembles a child.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

“Miscellaneous Observations,” Philosophical Writings, M. Stolijar, trans. (Albany: 1997) #48

Hermann Göring photo

“The Russians are primitive folk. Besides, Bolshevism is something that stifles individualism and which is against my inner nature. Bolshevism is worse than National Socialism — in fact, it can't be compared to it. Bolshevism is against private property, and I am all in favor of private property. Bolshevism is barbaric and crude, and I am fully convinced that that atrocities committed by the Nazis, which incidentally I knew nothing about, were not nearly as great or as cruel as those committed by the Communists. I hate the Communists bitterly because I hate the system. The delusion that all men are equal is ridiculous. I feel that I am superior to most Russians, not only because I am a German but because my cultural and family background are superior. How ironic it is that crude Russian peasants who wear the uniforms of generals now sit in judgment on me. No matter how educated a Russian might be, he is still a barbaric Asiatic. Secondly, the Russian generals and the Russian government planned a war against Germany because we represented a threat to them ideologically. In the German state, I was the chief opponent of Communism. I admit freely and proudly that it was I who created the first concentration camps in order to put Communists in them. Did I ever tell you that funny story about how I sent to Spain a ship containing mainly bricks and stones, under which I put a single layer of ammunition which had been ordered by the Red government in Spain? The purpose of that ship was to supply the waning Red government with munitions. That was a good practical joke and I am proud of it because I wanted with all my heart to see Russian Communism in Spain defeated finally.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (28 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Malcolm X photo
Pierre Bourdieu photo

“The point of my work is to show that culture and education aren't simply hobbies or minor influences.”

Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002) French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher

(2001), "The Intellectual Class Struggle," New York Times, Jan. 6, 2001

George Orwell photo
Socrates photo

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

No findable citation to Socrates. First appears in this form in the 1990s, such as in the Douglas Bradley article "Lighting a Flame in the Kickapoo Valley", Wisconsin Ideas, UW System, 1994. It appears to be a variant on a statement from Plutarch in On Listening to Lectures: "The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth." Alternate translation, from the Loeb Classical Library edition, 1927 http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/De_auditu*.html: "For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently and an ardent desire for the truth." Often quoted as, "The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled." Variants of the quote that are correctly attributed to Plutarch but which substitute "education" for "the mind" date back at least as far as the 1960s, as seen in the 1968 book Vision and Image by James Johnson Sweeney, p. 119 http://books.google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=plutarch#search_anchor.
Variants with "education" are also sometimes misattributed to William Butler Yeats, as in the 1993 book The Harper Book of Quotations (third edition), p. 138 http://books.google.com/books?id=THl7kUfSqCUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA138#v=onepage&q&f=false. In the previously-mentioned Vision and Image, the misquote of Plutarch involving "education" (which has exactly the same wording as the quote attributed to Yeats in The Harper Book of Quotations) is immediately preceded by a different quote from Yeats ("Culture does not consist in acquiring opinions but in getting rid of them"), so it's possible this is the source of the confusion—see the snippets here http://books.google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=yeats+culture#search_anchor and here http://books.google.com/books?id=d58FAAAAMAAJ&q=%22getting+rid+of+them%22#search_anchor.
The misattribution may also be related to a statement about Plato's views made by Benjamin Jowett in the introduction to his translation of Plato's Republic (in which all the main ideas were attributed to Socrates, as in all of Plato's works), on p. cci http://books.google.com/books?id=Cg_QX4yoOSQC&pg=PR201#v=onepage&q&f=false of the third edition (1888): "Education is represented by him, not as the filling of a vessel, but as the turning the eye of the soul towards the light." Jowett seems to be loosely paraphrasing a statement Plato attributes to Socrates in a dialogue with Glaucon, in sections 518b http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D518b– 518c http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D7%3Asection%3D518c of book 7 of The Republic, where Socrates says: "education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions. What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes … But our present argument indicates that the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body."
Further discussion of the history of this quote can be found in this entry http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/03/28/mind-fire/ from the "Quote Investigator" website.
Misattributed

Joachim Peiper photo
Huey Long photo

“I'm for the poor man — all poor men, black and white, they all gotta have a chance. They gotta have a home, a job, and a decent education for their children. 'Every man a king”

Huey Long (1893–1935) American politician, Governor of Louisiana, and United States Senator

that's my slogan.
Huey Long (T. Harry Williams, Huey Long, p. 706)

William Luther Pierce photo
Fukuzawa Yukichi photo

“Therefore, to teach them [women] at least an outline of economics and law is the first requirement after giving them a general education. Figuratively speaking, it will be like providing the women of civilized society with a pocket dagger for self-protection.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

From Fukuzawa Yukichi on Japanese Women (1988), trans. Kiyooka Eiichi.

“The length of your education is less important than its breadth, and the length of your life is less important than its depth.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in The Reader's Digest (1992) Vol. 140, p. 194

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn photo
Fukuzawa Yukichi photo

“It is said that heaven does not create one man above or below another man. Any existing distinction between the wise and the stupid, between the rich and the poor, comes down to a matter of education.”

Fukuzawa Yukichi (1835–1901) Japanese author, writer, teacher, translator, entrepreneur and journalist who founded Keio University

Gakumon no Susume [An Encouragement of Learning] (1872–1876).

Menachem Mendel Schneerson photo
Fidel Castro photo

“Man is born egotistical, a result of the conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues.”

Fidel Castro (1926–2016) former First Secretary of the Communist Party and President of Cuba

University of Havana address (2005)
Context: Man is born egotistical, a result of the conditioning of nature. Nature fills us with instincts; it is education that fills us with virtues. Nature makes us do things instinctively; one of these is the instinct for survival which can lead to infamy, while on the other side, our conscience can lead us to great acts of heroism. It doesn’t matter what each one of us is like, how different we are from each other, but when we unite we become one.
It is amazing that in spite of the differences between human beings, they can become as one in a single instant or they can be millions, and they can be a million strong just through their ideas. Nobody followed the Revolution as a cult to anyone or because they felt personal sympathy with any one person. It is only by embracing certain values and ideas that an entire people can develop the same willingness to make sacrifices of any one of those who loyally and sincerely try to lead them toward their destiny.

Geoff Dyer photo
Abbie Hoffman photo

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

Abbie Hoffman (1936–1989) American political and social activist

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.

Doris Lessing photo

“Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this:
"You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination.”

Introduction (1971)
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Context: Ideally, what should be said to every child, repeatedly, throughout his or her school life is something like this:
"You are in the process of being indoctrinated. We have not yet evolved a system of education that is not a system of indoctrination. We are sorry, but it is the best we can do. What you are being taught here is an amalgam of current prejudice and the choices of this particular culture. The slightest look at history will show how impermanent these must be. You are being taught by people who have been able to accommodate themselves to a regime of thought laid down by their predecessors. It is a self-perpetuating system. Those of you who are more robust and individual than others will be encouraged to leave and find ways of educating yourself — educating your own judgements. Those that stay must remember, always, and all the time, that they are being moulded and patterned to fit into the narrow and particular needs of this particular society."

John Dewey photo
Malcolm X photo

“Education is an important element in the struggle for human rights. It is the means to help our children and our people rediscover their identity and thereby increase their self respect. Education is our passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs only to the people who prepare for it today.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Speech at Founding Rally of the Organization of Afro-American Unity (28 June 1964), as quoted in By Any Means Necessary (1970)
By Any Means Necessary (1970)

John Amos Comenius photo
George Orwell photo
Zakir Hussain (politician) photo
Zafar Mirzo photo
Mary Harris Jones photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“The giving of love is an education in itself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Theodore Roosevelt photo

“A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

As quoted in Stepping Stones : The Complete Bible Narratives (1941)
Disputed

William James photo
Malcolm X photo

“And just because you have colleges and universities doesn't mean you have education.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: Malcolm X, Black Liberation, and the Road to Workers' Power

Rabindranath Tagore photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“For truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education: dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with pen- that one must learn how to write”

Variant: Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
Source: Twilight of the Idols

Abraham Lincoln photo

“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 can be engaged in.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Address Delivered in Candidacy for the State Legislature (9 March 1832)
1830s
Context: 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 can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the Scriptures, and other works both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves.

Stephen R. Covey photo

“Admission of ignorance is often the first step in our education.”

Source: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change

Oscar Wilde photo

“If I am occasionally a little over-dressed, I make up for it by being always immensely over-educated.”

Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young (1894)
Variant: The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated
Source: The Importance of Being Earnest
Context: The only way to atone for being occasionally a little over-dressed is by being always absolutely over-educated.

“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.”

John Taylor Gatto (1935–2018) American teacher, book author

Source: A Different Kind of Teacher: Solving the Crisis of American Schooling, Berkeley Hills Books (2000) p. 178

John Locke photo
Paulo Freire photo

“The educator has the duty of not being neutral.”

Paulo Freire (1921–1997) educator and philosopher

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

William Shakespeare photo

“Educated men are so impressive!”

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Susan B. Anthony photo
George Washington photo
Mark Twain photo
Alfred North Whitehead photo

“A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give him your heart and he will give you his.”

John Grogan (1958) American journalist

Source: Marley and Me: Life and Love With the World's Worst Dog

Noam Chomsky photo

“Education is a system of imposed ignorance.”

Source: Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media

John Dewey photo
Louise Labé photo
Ian McEwan photo
Michael Faraday photo
Frédéric Bastiat photo

“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

Le plus pressé, ce n'est pas que l'État enseigne, mais qu'il laisse enseigner. Tous les monopoles sont détestables, mais le pire de tous, c'est le monopole de l'enseignement.
In 'Cursed Money!', final thought.
The Bastiat-Proudhon Debate on Interest (1849–1850)
Source: What Is Money?

Abraham Lincoln photo
Karl Marx photo
Abraham Lincoln photo
José Martí photo

“To Educate is to Free.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

“It is always a much easier task to educate uneducated people than to re-educate the mis-educated.”

Herbert M. Shelton (1895–1985) American medical writer

Source: Getting Well https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0787307785 (Health Research Books, 1993), p. 137.

Mark Twain photo
Barack Obama photo
Terry Pratchett photo
Aldo Leopold photo

“Education, I fear, is learning to see one thing by going blind to another.”

Source: A Sand County Almanac, 1949, Manitoba: Clandeboye, p. 168.
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Erich Maria Remarque photo
Novalis photo

“To romanticize the world is to make us aware of the magic, mystery and wonder of the world; it is to educate the senses to see the ordinary as extraordinary, the familiar as strange, the mundane as sacred, the finite as infinite.”

Novalis (1772–1801) German poet and writer

As quoted in "Bildung in Early German Romanticism" by Frederick C. Beiser, in Philosophers on Education : Historical Perspectives (1998) by Amélie Rorty, p. 294

Vladimir Lenin photo

“The intellectual forces of the workers and peasants are growing and getting stronger in their fight to overthrow the bourgeoisie and their accomplices, the educated classes, the lackeys of capital, who consider themselves the brains of the nation. In fact they are not its brains but its shit.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Letter from Lenin to Gorky https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/g2aleks.html, Sept. 15, 1919
1910s
Source: The Letters Of Lenin

Mark Twain photo
Ken Robinson photo
Gene Simmons photo

“Believe me, the library is the temple of God. Education is the most sacred religion of all.”

Gene Simmons (1949) Israeli-born American rock bass guitarist, singer-songwriter, record producer, entrepreneur, and actor
Mark Twain photo

“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

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

Terry Pratchett photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo

“All of life is a constant education.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: The Wisdom of Eleanor Roosevelt

Lemmy Kilmister photo
Bertrand Russell photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“Your educators can only be your liberators.”

Source: Untimely Meditations

Aung San Suu Kyi photo

“The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.”

Aung San Suu Kyi (1945) State Counsellor of Myanmar and Leader of the National League for Democracy

Opening Keynote Address at NGO Forum on Women, Beijing China (1995)
Context: For millennia women have dedicated themselves almost exclusively to the task of nurturing, protecting and caring for the young and the old, striving for the conditions of peace that favour life as a whole. To this can be added the fact that, to the best of my knowledge, no war was ever started by women. But it is women and children who have always suffered most in situations of conflict. Now that we are gaining control of the primary historical role imposed on us of sustaining life in the context of the home and family, it is time to apply in the arena of the world the wisdom and experience thus gained in activities of peace over so many thousands of years. The education and empowerment of women throughout the world cannot fail to result in a more caring, tolerant, just and peaceful life for all.

Harrington Emerson photo

“In selecting human assistants such superficialities as education, as physical strength, even antecedent morality, are not as important as the inner attitudes, proclivities, character, which after all determine the man or woman.”

Harrington Emerson (1853–1931) American efficiency engineer and business theorist

Source: The twelve principles of efficiency (1912), p. 176; cited in Münsterberg (113; 52)

Elias James Corey photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Napoleon I of France photo

“The genius continually discovers fate, and the more profound the genius, the more profound the discovery of fate. To spiritlessness, this is naturally foolishness, but in actuality it is greatness, because no man is born with the idea of providence, and those who think that one acquires it gradually though education are greatly mistaken, although I do not thereby deny the significance of education. Not until sin is reached is providence posited. Therefore the genius has an enormous struggle to reach providence. If he does not reach it, truly he becomes a subject for the study of fate. The genius is an omnipotent Ansich [in itself] which as such would rock the whole world. For the sake of order, another figure appears along with him, namely fate. Fate is nothing. It is the genius himself who discovers it, and the more profound the genius, the more profoundly he discovers fate, because that figure is merely the anticipation of providence. If he continues to be merely a genius and turns outward, he will accomplish astonishing things; nevertheless, he will always succumb to fate, if not outwardly, so that it is tangible and visible to all, then inwardly. Therefore, a genius-existence is always like a fairy tale if in the deepest sense the genius does not turn inward into himself. The genius is able to do all things, and yet he is dependent upon an insignificance that no one comprehends, an insignificance upon which the genius himself by his omnipotence bestows omnipotent significance. Therefore, a second lieutenant, if he is a genius, is able to become an emperor and change the world, so that there becomes one empire and one emperor. But therefore, too, the army may be drawn up for battle, the conditions for the battle absolutely favorable, and yet in the next moment wasted; a kingdom of heroes may plead that the order for battle be given-but he cannot; he must wait for the fourteenth of June. And why? Because that was the date of the battle of Marengo. So all things may be in readiness, he himself stands before the legions, waiting only for the sun to rise in order to announce the time for the oration that will electrify the soldiers, and the sun may rise more glorious than ever, an inspiring and inflaming sight for all, only not for him, because the sun did not rise as glorious as this at Austerlitz, and only the sun of Austerlitz gives victory and inspiration. Thus, the inexplicable passion with which such a one may often rage against an entirely insignificant man, when otherwise he may show humanity and kindness even toward his enemies. Yes, woe unto the man, woe unto the woman, woe unto the innocent child, woe unto the beast of the field, woe unto the bird whose flight, woe unto the tree whose branch comes in his way at the moment he is to interpret his omen.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety, Nichol p. 98-100 (1844)
About

Kurt Vonnegut photo
Malala Yousafzai photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi photo

“It is life itself that educates.”

Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827) Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer

Das Leben bildet.
Schwanengesang [Swan Song] (1826)

Bell Hooks photo

“Popular escapist fiction enchants adult readers without challenging them to be educated for critical consciousness.”

Bell Hooks (1952) American author, feminist, and social activist

Rock My Soul (2003)

Bertrand Russell photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 12: Education and Discipline