Quotes about education
page 7

Malcolm Gladwell photo
William H. Gass photo

“Sports, politics, and religion are the three passions of the badly educated.”

William H. Gass (1924–2017) Fiction writer, critic, philosophy professor

Source: In the Heart of the Heart of the Country and Other Stories

Frederick Douglass photo
Will Durant photo

“Sixty years ago I knew everything. Now I know nothing. Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.”

Will Durant (1885–1981) American historian, philosopher and writer

Quoted in "Books: The Great Gadfly", Time magazine, 8 October 1965 (review of The Age of Voltaire by Will and Ariel Durant)

Christopher Hitchens photo

“The most educated person in the world now has to admit-- I shall not say confess-- that he or she knows less and less but at least knows less and less about more and more.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Rachel Caine photo
Aldo Leopold photo
Booker T. Washington photo
Swami Vivekananda photo
Ken Robinson photo
William Goldman photo
Immanuel Kant photo

“Education is the movement from darkness to light.”

Allan Bloom (1930–1992) American philosopher, classicist, and academician
Chuck Palahniuk photo
Sheryl WuDunn photo
Ringo Starr photo

“Ringo: 'I had no schooling before I joined The Beatles and no schooling after The Beatles. Life is a great education.”

Ringo Starr (1940) British musician, former member of the Beatles

Source: The Beatles Anthology

Max Brooks photo
Murray N. Rothbard photo

“It is clearly absurd to limit the term 'education' to a person's formal schooling.”

Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995) American economist of the Austrian School, libertarian political theorist, and historian

Source: Education, Free & Compulsory

Henry Ford photo
Neal Shusterman photo
Ken Robinson photo
Confucius photo
Maya Angelou photo
Chi­ma­man­da Ngo­zi Adi­chie photo
Richard Dawkins photo
Carter G. Woodson photo

“The mere imparting of information is not education.”

Carter G. Woodson (1875–1950) African-American historian and writer
Sherman Alexie photo
Brian K. Vaughan photo
Herbert Spencer photo

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.”

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, biologist, sociologist, and prominent classical liberal political theorist
Jane Austen photo
John Maynard Keynes photo

“Education is the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the ignorant by the incompetent.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

From hearer's memory in Jewish Frontier, vol. 29 http://books.google.com/books?id=NmYeAAAAMAAJ&q=keynes+%22inculcation+of+the+incomprehensible+into+the+ignorant+by+the+incompetent%22&dq=keynes+%22inculcation+of+the+incomprehensible+into+the+ignorant+by+the+incompetent (1962).
Alternate version: Education: the inculcation of the incomprehensible into the indifferent by the incompetent.
As quoted in Infinite Riches: Gems from a Lifetime of Reading (1979) by Leo Calvin Rosten, p. 165
Attributed

Albert Einstein photo

“The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

This is similar to a quote attributed to Mark Twain: "I never let my schooling get in the way of my education". The earliest published source located attributing the quote to Einstein is the 1999 book Career Management for the Creative Person by Lee T. Silber, p. 130 http://books.google.com/books?id=eNjhnHmerfwC&q=%22interferes+with+my+learning%22#search_anchor, while the earliest published source located for the Mark Twain quote is the 1996 book Children at Risk by C. Niall McElwee, p. 45 http://books.google.com/books?id=p_FEAAAAYAAJ&q=%22never+let+schooling+get+in+the+way+of+my+education%22+%22mark+twain%22#search_anchor. Both quotes appeared on the internet before that: the earliest post located that attributes the quote to Einstein is this one from 11 February 1994 http://groups.google.com/group/rec.travel.air/msg/b1feb7ca5019ab2e, while the earliest located that attributes the variant to Mark Twain is this one from 28 March 1988 http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.m68k/msg/9c2f7cdecb11eccb
Misattributed

Graham Chapman photo
Don DeLillo photo
Neal Stephenson photo
Woody Allen photo

“His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy.”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician
Thomas Jefferson photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Christopher Hitchens photo
Stacy Schiff photo

“As always, an educated woman was a dangerous woman.”

Stacy Schiff (1961) American female Author, Pulitzer Prize winner

Source: Cleopatra: A Life

Leo Buscaglia photo
Anatole France photo

“An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know, and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

The first two sentences of this statement first appear as attributed to France in the 1990s, but the full statement is earlier attributed to William Feather, as quoted in Telephony, Vol. 150 (1956), p. 23 http://books.google.com/books?id=Wm0jAQAAMAAJ&q=%22being+able+to+differentiate+between+what+you+do+know%22&dq=%22being+able+to+differentiate+between+what+you+do+know%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=qYJOU9dAzoXRAYumgcAP&ved=0CMsCEOgBMDQ
Misattributed

Anne Morrow Lindbergh photo

“The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires.”

Source: Gift from the Sea (1955)
Context: The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.
But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony.
Context: The shape of my life today starts with a family. I have a husband, five children and a home just beyond the suburbs of New York. I have also a craft, writing, and therefore work I want to pursue. The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many other things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires. I want to give and take from my children and husband, to share with friends and community, to carry out my obligations to man and to the world, as a woman, as an artist, as a citizen.
But I want first of all — in fact, as an end to these other desires — to be at peace with myself. I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can. I want, in fact — to borrow from the languages of the saints — to live "in grace" as much of the time as possible. I am not using this term in a strictly theological sense. By grace I mean an inner harmony, essentially spiritual, which can be translated into outward harmony. I am seeking perhaps what Socrates asked for in the prayer from Phaedrus when he said, "May the outward and the inward man be at one." I would like to achieve a state of inner spiritual grace from which I could function and give as I was meant to in the eye of God.

Albert Einstein photo
T.S. Eliot photo

“No one can become really educated without having pursued some study in which he took no interest- for it is a part of education to learn to interest ourselves in subjects for which we have no aptitude.”

T.S. Eliot (1888–1965) 20th century English author

Source: Quoted in Herbert Howarth, Notes on Some Figures behind T. S. Eliot (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1964), p. 89

James Patterson photo

“You're children. Don't you want a home, a family?"
"With, like, vitamin-fortified cereal and educational television?”

James Patterson (1947) American author

Source: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

W.E.B. Du Bois photo
Tom Brokaw photo
Maya Angelou photo
Thomas Sowell photo
Markus Zusak photo
Tom Clancy photo
E.M. Forster photo
Alice Waters photo
Mary Roach photo
Richard Cobden photo
David Lee photo
Anthony Burgess photo

“It is generally felt that the educated man or woman should be able to read Dante, Goethe, Baudelaire, Lorca in the original - with, anyway, the crutch of a translation.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Non-Fiction, A Mouthful of Air: Language and Languages, Especially English (1992)

Joseph Addison photo

“Education…is a companion which no misfortunes can depress, no clime destroy, no enemy alienate, no despotism enslave: at home a friend, abroad an introduction, in solitude a solace, in society an ornament: it chastens vice, it guides virtue, it gives at once a grace and government to genius. Without it, what is man? A splendid slave, a reasoning savage.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Though sometimes attributed to Addison, this actually comes from a speech delivered by the Irish lawyer Charles Phillips in 1817, in the case of O'Mullan v. M'Korkill, published in Irish Eloquence: The Speeches of the Celebrated Irish Orators (1834) pp. 91-92.
Misattributed

Thomas Carlyle photo
Chris Eubank photo
Francis Escudero photo

“• Increase of P3.636 billion for the Department of Education, particularly for a Feeding Program, the Quick Response Fund, and Chalk Allowance for teachers;”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

2014, Speech: Sponsorship Speech for the FY 2015 National Budget

Elena Kagan photo
Michael Powell photo
Francis Escudero photo
Chandra Shekhar photo
Henry James photo
Bob Rae photo

“The major cuts in federal and provincial transfers to social service agencies, health care, education, and social housing over the past several years have not bee matched by an explosion in private giving. Nor will they ever be.”

Bob Rae (1948) Canadian politician

Source: The Three Questions - Prosperity and the Public Good (1998), Chapter Five, The Second Question: Charity and Welfare-The Old Debate Is New Again,, p. 91

Gore Vidal photo

“The great doctors all got their education off dirt pavements and poverty — not marble floors and foundations.”

Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) American university teacher (1879-1962)

Fischerisms (1944)

Rakesh Khurana photo

“Neoclassical economic theory forms the central discourse and behavioral model of contemporary management education. Drawing on research and insights from game theory and behavioral economics we have argued that many of the core assumptions underlying this model are flawed. While we cannot say that the widespread reliance on the Homo economicus model has caused the highly level of observed managerial malfeasance, it may well have, and it surely does not act as a healthy influence on managerial morality. Students have learned this flawed model and in their capacity as corporate managers, doubtless act daily in conformance with it. This, in turn, may have contributed to the weakening of socially functional values and norms like honesty, integrity, self-restraint, reciprocity and fairness, to the detriment of the health of the enterprise. Simultaneously, this perspective has legitimized, or at least not delegitimized, such behaviors as material greed and optimizing with guile. We noted that this model has become highly institutionalized in business education. Fortunately, we believe that the potential for moving away from this flawed model is significant and thus can end this chapter on a more optimistic note for the future of business education.”

Rakesh Khurana (1967) American business academic

Herbert Gintis and Rakesh Khurana. " What Happened When Homo Economicus Entered Business School https://evonomics.com/what-happens-when-you-introduce-homo-economicus-into-business/," in: evonomics.com, July 14, 2016.

Fran Lebowitz photo

“Liberal education is the necessary endeavor to found an aristocracy within democratic mass society.”

Leo Strauss (1899–1973) Classical philosophy specialist and father of neoconservativism

“What is liberal education,” p. 5
Liberalism Ancient and Modern (1968)

James Finlay Weir Johnston photo

“Among the friends and patrons of the society at York who paid kind and hospitable attention to those whom the love of science had brought to the meeting, the clergy must not be passed over in silence. They had been the zealous promoters of the meeting; had done much towards facilitating the preliminary arrangements; and exerted themselves by their influence and example to secure to the association that respect and general attention which it deserved, and which at York it amply received. To the church, therefore, the British Association is deeply indebted; and convinced, as I am, that true religion and true science ever lead to the same great end, manifesting and exalting the glory and goodness of the great object of our common worship, I trust that the firmer the association is established, and the more influential it becomes, the more willing and the more efficient an ally it will prove in the cause of religion. While in former times science was said to lead to infidelity, because then it was less profoundly studied, or with less zeal for truth, it is one of the happy characters of the science of this day that it renders men more devout; and it is a pleasing evidence that such is the received opinion, when discerning and educated men — the friends and teachers of religion — of all ranks, step forward not only to patronize science, but to enlist themselves among its cultivators, and to distinguish those who have most successfully advanced it.”

James Finlay Weir Johnston (1796–1855) Scottish agricultural chemist

Report of the First Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at York in September 1831. By James F. W. Johnston, A. M. &c. &c. As found in David Brewster's The Edinburgh Journal Of Science. Vol. 8 https://archive.org/stream/edinburghjourna09brewgoog#page/n29/mode/2up, p. 29.

Francis Escudero photo
Max Stirner photo
Edwin Boring photo
Ela Bhatt photo
Bill Gates photo

“If you just want to say, "Steve Jobs invented the world, and then the rest of us came along," that's fine. If you’re interested, [Vista development chief] Jim Allchin will be glad to educate you feature by feature what the truth is. … Let’s be realistic, who came up with "File/Edit/View/Help"? Do you want to go back to the original Mac and think about where those interface concepts came from?”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Interview with Steven Levy in Newsweek (31 January 2007) "Finally, Vista Makes Its Debut. Now What?" http://archive.is/20130105003445/www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2007/01/31/finally-vista-makes-its-debut-now-what.html
2000s

Ataol Behramoğlu photo

“Creativity is a hidden gem. Education is needed to uncover it.”

Ataol Behramoğlu (1942) Turkish writer

The Poet's Poetic Responsibility (2012)

“I expected too much of educators. I expected them to understand, in a sense, the sugar-coated concepts of LISP used in AI that were embodied in the Logo language. It was then that I learned that computers were built to make money, not minds.”

Gary Kildall (1942–1994) Computer scientist and entrepreneur

Unpublished memoir Computer Connections, on the prevalence of BASIC in programming education; quoted in a eulogy http://www2.gol.com/users/joewein/eulogy.htm delivered by Tom Rolander

Robert Maynard Hutchins photo
Bernard Lewis photo
Gaurav Sharma (author) photo
Alex Salmond photo

“I have long been a supporter of the quality of faith-based education in this country - and a particular admirer of the contribution of Scotland's Catholic schools.”

Alex Salmond (1954) Scottish National Party politician and former First Minister of Scotland

Cardinal Winning Lecture (February 2, 2008)

Leszek Kolakowski photo
Donald J. Trump photo
John Milton photo