Quotes about education
page 3

Selena photo
Maria Montessori photo

“The task of the educator of young children lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity.”

Maria Montessori (1870–1952) Italian pedagogue, philosopher and physician

Attributed in The Encarta Book of Quotations (2000), edited by Bill Swainson, p. 662

Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“To say it once again: today I find it an impossible book — badly written, clumsy and embarrassing, its images frenzied and confused, sentimental, in some places saccharine-sweet to the point of effeminacy, uneven in pace, lacking in any desire for logical purity, so sure of its convictions that it is above any need for proof, and even suspicious of the propriety of proof, a book for initiates, 'music' for those who have been baptized in the name of music and who are related from the first by their common and rare experiences of art, a shibboleth for first cousins in artibus [in the arts] an arrogant and fanatical book that wished from the start to exclude the profanum vulgus [the profane mass] of the 'educated' even more than the 'people'; but a book which, as its impact has shown and continues to show, has a strange knack of seeking out its fellow-revellers and enticing them on to new secret paths and dancing-places.”

Nochmals gesagt, heute ist es mir ein unmögliches Buch, - ich heisse es schlecht geschrieben, schwerfällig, peinlich, bilderwüthig und bilderwirrig, gefühlsam, hier und da verzuckert bis zum Femininischen, ungleich im Tempo, ohne Willen zur logischen Sauberkeit, sehr überzeugt und deshalb des Beweisens sich überhebend, misstrauisch selbst gegen die Schicklichkeit des Beweisens, als Buch für Eingeweihte, als "Musik" für Solche, die auf Musik getauft, die auf gemeinsame und seltene Kunst-Erfahrungen hin von Anfang der Dinge an verbunden sind, als Erkennungszeichen für Blutsverwandte in artibus, - ein hochmüthiges und schwärmerisches Buch, das sich gegen das profanum vulgus der "Gebildeten" von vornherein noch mehr als gegen das "Volk" abschliesst, welches aber, wie seine Wirkung bewies und beweist, sich gut genug auch darauf verstehen muss, sich seine Mitschwärmer zu suchen und sie auf neue Schleichwege und Tanzplätze zu locken.
"Attempt at a Self-Criticism", p. 5
The Birth of Tragedy (1872)

Thomas Mann photo

“Love for him, for the human body, was extremely humanitarian an interest and had more educational power than the whole teaching skills of the world!”

L’amour pour lui, pour le corps humain, c’est de même un intérêt extrêmement humanitaire et une puissance plus éducative que toute la pédagogie du monde!
Source: The Magic Mountain (1924), Ch. 5

Barack Obama photo

“The single best indicator of whether a nation will succeed is how it treats its women. When women have health care and women have education, families are stronger, communities are more prosperous, children do better in school, nations are more prosperous.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the People of Africa (July 2015)
Context: [... ] let girls learn so they grow up healthy and they grow up strong. And that will be good for families. And they will raise smart, healthy children, and that will be good for every one of your nations. Africa is the beautiful, strong women that these girls grow up to become. The single best indicator of whether a nation will succeed is how it treats its women. When women have health care and women have education, families are stronger, communities are more prosperous, children do better in school, nations are more prosperous. Look at the amazing African women here in this hall. If you want your country to grow and succeed, you have to empower your women. […] Let’s work together to stop sexual assault and domestic violence. Let’s make clear that we will not tolerate rape as a weapon of war -- it’s a crime. And those who commit it must be punished.  Let’s lift up the next generation of women leaders who can help fight injustice and forge peace and start new businesses and create jobs -- and some might hire some men, too. We’ll all be better off when women have equal futures.

Prem Rawat photo
John Wayne photo
Alice A. Bailey photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“To build up a community, not upon Liberal opinions, which any man may fashion to his fancy, but upon popular principles, which assert equal rights, civil and religious; to uphold the institutions of the country because they are the embodiment of the wants and wishes of the nation, and protect us alike from individual tyranny and popular outrage; equally to resist democracy and oligarchy; and favour that principle of free aristocracy which is the only basis and security for constitutional government; to be vigilant to guard and prompt to vindicate the honour of the country, but to hold aloof from that turbulent diplomacy which only distracts the mind of a people from internal improvement; to lighten taxation; frugally but wisely to administer the public treasure; to favour popular education, because it is the best guarantee for public order; to defend local government; and to be as jealous of the rights of the working man as of the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the Senate—these were once the principles which regulated Tory statesmen, and I for one have no wish that the Tory party should ever be in power unless they practise them.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1862/aug/01/the-administration-of-viscount in the House of Commons (1 August 1862).

C.G. Jung photo
Benjamin Disraeli photo

“I had to prepare the mind of the country, and to educate…our party. … I had to prepare the mind of Parliament and the country on this question of Reform.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech on Reform Bill of 1867, Edinburgh, Scotland (29 October 1867), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 289.

V.S. Naipaul photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child – this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways.”

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

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin. It should be noted that in his talk of "the race", he is referring to "the human race". Smith married Russell in December 1894; they divorced in 1921.
1890s

Barack Obama photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“We must all educate ourselves to the reality of the horrors taking place. Doctors today know that unborn children can feel a touch within the womb and that they respond to pain.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Huey Long photo
Dennis Prager photo
Michael Elmore-Meegan photo
Kurt Vonnegut photo
Lillian Gilbreth photo
Stefan Zweig photo

“I know lots of people who are educated far beyond their intelligence.”

Lewis Grizzard (1946–1994) American journalist

Source: cited in Living Positive with Imperfection: A Memoir, September 15, 2017 https://books.google.com/books?id=hxU6CwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT231&ots=0nMTnr_TtC&dq=I%20know%20lots%20of%20people%20who%20are%20educated%20far%20beyond%20their%20intelligence.&pg=PT231#v=onepage&q=I%20know%20lots%20of%20people%20who%20are%20educated%20far%20beyond%20their%20intelligence.&f=false,

José Saramago photo

“Intoxicated mentally by the messianic dream of a Greater Israel which will finally achieve the expansionist dreams of the most radical Zionism; contaminated by the monstrous and rooted 'certitude' that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God and that, consequently, all the actions of an obsessive, psychological and pathologically exclusivist racism are justified; educated and trained in the idea that any suffering that has been inflicted, or is being inflicted, or will be inflicted on everyone else, especially the Palestinians, will always be inferior to that which they themselves suffered in the Holocaust, the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner.”

José Saramago (1922–2010) Portuguese writer and recipient of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Literature

Intoxicados mentalmente pela idéia messiânica de um Grande Israel que torne por fim realidade os sonhos expansionistas do sionismo mais radical, contaminados pela monstruosa e arraigada "certeza" de que neste mundo catastrófico e absurdo existe um povo eleito por Deus e, portanto, estão automaticamente justificadas e autorizadas, em nome dos horrores do passado e dos medos de hoje, todas as ações nascidas de um racismo obsessivo, psicológica e patologicamente exclusivista, educados e formados na idéia de que qualquer sofrimento que tenham infligido, inflijam ou venham a infligir aos demais, em especial aos palestinos, sempre será inferior ao que eles padeceram no Holocausto, os judeus arranham sem cessar sua própria ferida para que não deixe de sangrar, para torná-la incurável, e mostram-na ao mundo como se fosse uma bandeira.
Interview with El País (2002); cited in Princípios (Editora Anita Garibaldi, 2002), p. 88; English translation taken from Phillips The World Turned Upside Down (2010), p. 207.

William Osler photo

“Common sense in matters medical is rare, and is usually in inverse ratio to the degree of education.”

William Osler (1849–1919) Canadian pathologist, physician, educator, bibliophile, historian, author, cofounder of Johns Hopkins Hospi…

"Teaching and Thinking" in The Montreal Medical Journal (1895).

Yeshayahu Leibowitz photo
Malcolm X photo
Ronald Reagan photo

“It is possible that the Supreme Court itself may overturn its abortion rulings. We need only recall that in Brown v. Board of Education the court reversed its own earlier "separate-but-equal" decision.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

1980s, First term of office (1981–1985), Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (1983)

Mark Twain photo
Olof Palme photo

“For us, democracy is a question of human dignity. This includes the political liberties, the right to freely express our views, the right to criticize and to influence opinion. It embraces the right to health and work, to education and social security.”

Olof Palme (1927–1986) Swedish 20th century prime minister

Source: Nancy I. Lieber, ‎Institute for Democratic Socialism (U.S.) (1982) Eurosocialism and America: political economy for the 1980s. p. 222.

Jean Jacques Rousseau photo
Barack Obama photo
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach photo

“One of the main goals of self-education is to eradicate that vanity in us without which we would never have been educated.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 77.

Antisthenes photo

“The investigation of the meaning of words is the beginning of education.”

Antisthenes (-444–-365 BC) Greek philosopher

Arrian, Discourses of Epictetus, i. 17

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“My theological beliefs are likely to startle one who has imagined me as an orthodox adherent of the Anglican Church. My father was of that faith, and was married by its rites, yet, having been educated in my mother's distinctively Yankee family, I was early placed in the Baptist sunday school. There, however, I soon became exasperated by the literal Puritanical doctrines, and constantly shocked my preceptors by expressing scepticism of much that was taught me. It became evident that my young mind was not of a religious cast, for the much exhorted "simple faith" in miracles and the like came not to me. I was not long forced to attend the Sunday school, but read much in the Bible from sheer interest. The more I read the Scriptures, the more foreign they seemed to me. I was infinitely fonder on the Graeco-Roman mythology, and when I was eight astounded the family by declaring myself a Roman pagan. Religion struck me so vague a thing at best, that I could perceive no advantage of any one system over any other. I had really adopted a sort of Pantheism, with the Roman gods as personified attributes of deity.... My present opinions waver betwixt Pantheism and rationalism. I am a sort of agnostic, neither affirming nor denying anything.”

H.P. Lovecraft (1890–1937) American author

Letter to Maurice W. Moe (16 January 1915), in Selected Letters I, 1911-1924 edited by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei, p. 10
Non-Fiction, Letters

Maximilien Robespierre photo

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Original French: Le secret de la liberté est d'éclairer les hommes, comme celui de la tyrannie est de les retenir dans l'ignorance
Source: Oeuvres, Volume 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=iSMVAAAAQAAJ p. 253.

Steve Irwin photo

“I've probably saved thousands of people's lives with my educational message on snake bites, how to get in around venomous anything. Yeah, I'm a thrill seeker, but crikey, education's the most important thing.”

Steve Irwin (1962–2006) Australian environmentalist and television personality

Online interview at Scientific American online (sciam.com) (26 March 2001)

Napoleon I of France photo

“I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.”

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

Letter to Sheikh El-Messiri, (28 August 1798); published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol.4, No. 3148, p. 420

H.P. Lovecraft photo

“I think we should see whether we are wise trying to educate everybody to a high standard the way we are trying to do now. There has to be a high level of education so everybody is literate, but whether university education is necessary for everyone is open to question.”

Robertson Davies (1913–1995) Canadian journalist, playwright, professor, critic, and novelist

"College Master Looks at His World: Author Davies Finds Youth Little Changed".
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)

Jawaharlal Nehru photo

“To be successful in life what you need is education.”

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889–1964) Indian lawyer, statesman, and writer, first Prime Minister of India

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

Mukesh Ambani photo
Claude Monet photo
Aleksandr Pushkin photo
Aristophanés photo

“Demosthenes: A demagogue must be neither an educated nor an honest man; he has to be an ignoramus and a rogue.”

tr. O'Neill 1938, Perseus http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text.jsp?doc=Aristoph.+Kn.+191
Knights, line 191-193
Knights (424 BC)

James Baldwin photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Barack Obama photo
Bertrand Russell photo

“There are those who blame the Press, but in this I think they are mistaken. The Press is such as the public demands, and the public demands bad newspapers because it has been badly educated.”

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

Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 133

Richard Branson photo

“The talents of young people must not be stifled. Education is not just about getting the right grades in exams but it should encourage all students to develop their optimum capacity, whatever that may be. Schools and colleges should prepare young people for life.”

Richard Branson (1950) English business magnate, investor and philanthropist

From Branson's Foreword to the book: [Marcouse, Ian, 1996, Understanding Industry, Bath, Hodder & Stoughton, ix, 034067927-1, 2014]

Abraham Lincoln photo
Napoleon I of France photo
Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned photo

“To give every child the chance to be educated is a gift of promise. A gift of wonderment. A gift that opens up possibilities that can transform lives and develop thinkers, leaders, and creators of great art.”

Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned (1958) wife of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani

Speech at Jazz at Lincoln Centre; quoted on official website http://www.mozabintnasser.qa/en/Pages/ArticlePreview.aspx?ArticleGuid=de04d373-9eaa-46c8-9f4d-033ff7b8fe1f&Type=Speech# (May 16 2013)

Hu Jintao photo

“We are ready to expand the friendly people-to-people exchanges and enhance exchanges and cooperation in science, technology, culture, education, and other areas.”

Hu Jintao (1942) former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

2000s, White House speech (2006)

José Saramago photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Samael Aun Weor photo
Jan Tinbergen photo
Barack Obama photo
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi photo
Barack Obama photo
C.G. Jung photo
Barack Obama photo

“All of us must recognise that education and innovation will be the currency of the 21st Century.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Henry Mintzberg photo
Nikola Tesla photo
Socrates photo
Malala Yousafzai photo

“I started thinking about that, and I used to think that the Talib would come, and he would just kill me. But then I said, 'If he comes, what would you do Malala?' then I would reply to myself, 'Malala, just take a shoe and hit him.' But then I said, 'If you hit a Talib with your shoe, then there would be no difference between you and the Talib. You must not treat others with cruelty and that much harshly, you must fight others but through peace and through dialogue and through education.' Then I said I will tell him how important education is and that 'I even want education for your children as well.”

Malala Yousafzai (1997) Pakistani children's education activist

And I will tell him, 'That's what I want to tell you, now do what you want.'
2010 -
Source: Brian Jones, " 16-Year-Old Malala Yousafzai Leaves Jon Stewart Speechless With Comment About Pacifism http://www.businessinsider.com/malala-yousafzai-left-jon-stewart-speechless-2013-10," Business Insider, Oct. 9, 2013, 9:38 PM: from an interview on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart:

Alice A. Bailey photo
Eva Mendes photo
Al Gore photo
Barack Obama photo
Barack Obama photo
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe photo

“Not to keep from error, is the duty of the educator of men, but to guide the erring one, even to let him swill his error out of full cups — that is the wisdom of teachers. Whoever merely tastes of his error, will keep house with it for a long time, … but whoever drains it completely will have to get to know it.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Nicht vor Irrthum zu bewahren, ist die Pflicht des Menschen erziehers; sondern den Irrenden zu leiten, ja ihn seinen Irrthum aus vollen Bechern ausschlürfen zu lassen, das ist Weisheit der Lehrer. Wer seinen Irrthum nur kostet, hält lange damit Haus; er freuet sich dessen als eines seltenen Glücks; aber wer ihn ganz erschöpft, der muß ihn kennenlernen.
Bk. VII, Ch. 9
Wilhelm Meister's Lehrjahre (Apprenticeship) (1786–1830)

Bertrand Russell photo
Barack Obama photo

“How does America find its way in this new, global economy? What will our place in history be? Like so much of the American story, once again, we face a choice. Once again, there are those who believe that there isn’t much we can do about this as a nation. That the best idea is to give everyone one big refund on their government—divvy it up by individual portions, in the form of tax breaks, hand it out, and encourage everyone to use their share to go buy their own health care, their own retirement plan, their own child care, their own education, and so on. In Washington, they call this the Ownership Society. But in our past there has been another term for it—Social Darwinism—every man or woman for him or herself. It’s a tempting idea, because it doesn’t require much thought or ingenuity. It allows us to say that those whose health care or tuition may rise faster than they can afford—tough luck. It allows us to say to the Maytag workers who have lost their job—life isn’t fair. It let’s us say to the child who was born into poverty—pull yourself up by your bootstraps. And it is especially tempting because each of us believes we will always be the winner in life’s lottery, that we’re the one who will be the next Donald Trump, or at least we won’t be the chump who Donald Trump says: “You’re fired!” But there is a problem. It won’t work. It ignores our history. It ignores the fact that it’s been government research and investment that made the railways possible and the internet possible. It’s been the creation of a massive middle class, through decent wages and benefits and public schools that allowed us all to prosper. Our economic dependence depended on individual initiative. It depended on a belief in the free market; but it has also depended on our sense of mutual regard for each other, the idea that everybody has a stake in the country, that we’re all in it together and everybody’s got a shot at opportunity. That’s what’s produced our unrivaled political stability.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Knox College Commencement Address (4 June 2005)
2005

Friedrich Nietzsche photo
Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury photo

“…when I am told that my ploughmen are capable citizens, it seems to me ridiculous to say that educated women are not just as capable. A good deal of the political battle of the future will be a conflict between religion and unbelief: & the women will in that controversy be on the right side.”

Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury (1830–1903) British politician

Letter to Lady John Manners (14 June 1884), from Paul Smith (ed.), Lord Salisbury on politics: a selection from his articles in the Quarterly Review, 1860–83 (1972), p. 18, footnote
1880s

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy photo

“Whomsoever I love or hate, my principle is the same. That is, the educated, the rich and the administrators should not suck the blood of the poor.”

Periyar E. V. Ramasamy (1879–1973) Tamil politician and social reformer

Quoted in Quotes of Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, Velivada.com
Society

Barack Obama photo

“A woman who is denied an education is denied equality.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Barack Obama photo

“In ancient times and in our times, Muslim communities have been at the forefront of innovation and education.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

John Henry Newman photo
Eleanor Roosevelt photo
John Locke photo
Huey Long photo

“Treat them just the same as anybody else, give them an opportunity to make a living, and to get an education.”

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

Huey Long on his Negro policy as President (Williams p. 704)

Fermín Lasuén photo

“It is evident that a nation (Refering to native Californians) that is barbarous, ferocious, and ignorant requires more frequent punishment than a nation which is cultured, educated, and of gentle and moderate.”

Fermín Lasuén (1736–1803) Spanish missionary to Alta California.

"Representación," San Carlos, 12 November 1800, Santa Bárbara Arch., 2:199-211.

Peter Hitchens photo
Barack Obama photo

“Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty. Because there are aspirations that human beings share -- the liberty of knowing that your leader is accountable to you, and that you won’t be locked up for disagreeing with them; the opportunity to get an education and to be able to work with dignity; the freedom to practice your faith without fear or restriction. Those are universal values that must be observed everywhere.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by the President at the University of Indonesia in Jakarta, Indonesia November 10, 2010 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2010/11/10/remarks-president-university-indonesia-jakarta-indonesia
The line "Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty. Because there are aspirations that human beings share - the liberty of knowing that your leader is accountable to you - and that you won't get locked up for disagreeing with them" was according to the BBC's Guy Delauney in Jakarta a thinly-veiled swipe at China, in particular its treatment of political dissidents. See Obama hails Indonesia as example for world, BBC News Asia-Pacific, 10 November 2010 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-11723650.
The line "Prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty" was later repeated by Obama in his remarks to the Australian Parliament on November 17, 2011 http://usrsaustralia.state.gov/us-oz/2011/11/17/wh1.html where Obama stated: "As we grow our economies, we’ll also remember the link between growth and good governance -- the rule of law, transparent institutions, the equal administration of justice. Because history shows that, over the long run, democracy and economic growth go hand in hand. And prosperity without freedom is just another form of poverty."
2010

Barack Obama photo
G. K. Chesterton photo
Barack Obama photo
Ben Horowitz photo

“The important thing about mobile is, everybody has a computer in their pocket. The implications of so many people connected to the Internet all the time from the standpoint of education is incredible.”

Ben Horowitz (1966) American businessman

Ben Horowitz in: Maria Bartiromo, " Maria Bartiromo interviews tech investor Ben Horowitz http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/management/bartiromo/story/2012-02-19/maria-bartiromo-ben-horowitz-internet/53156192/1," for USA TODAY, 2/20/2012.

Norman Cousins photo

“The main failure of education is that it has not prepared people to comprehend matters concerning human destiny.”

Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist

15 April 1978.
Saturday Review

Terry Pratchett photo

“"Educational" refers to the process, not the object. Although, come to think of it, some of my teachers could easily have been replaced by a cheeseburger.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

In response to a comment that if television is educational because watching it can teach you a lot about society, then a cheeseburger is also educational, alt.fan.pratchett (15 October 1996) http://www.lspace.org/books/pqf/alt-fan-pratchett.html
Usenet

Malala Yousafzai photo