Quotes about learning
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“Governments never learn. Only people learn.”

Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer

Statement made in 1980, as quoted in The Cynic's Lexicon : A Dictionary Of Amoral Advice‎ (1984), by Jonathon Green, p. 77

People

“Business is a game, played for fantastic stakes, and you're in competition with experts. If you want to win, you have to learn to be a master of the game.”

Sidney Sheldon Master of the Game

Source: Master of the Game

Game, Business

“We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment

Understanding, Knowledge, Reality

“We shall never learn to feel and respect our real calling and destiny, unless we have taught ourselves to consider every thing as moonshine, compared with the education of the heart.”

Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish historical novelist, playwright, and poet

Education, Feeling, Heart

“Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”

Vernon Howard (1918–1992) American writer

Music, Night

“With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.”

Jared Diamond book Guns, Germs, and Steel

Source: Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

People, History, Time

“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Source: The Complete Essays

Wisdom

“I know nothing of god or the devil. I have never learned a secret nor found a cure that would damn or save my soul.”

Anne Rice (1941) American writer

God, Secret, Soul

“Everything you need to know you have learned through your journey.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

Graduation

“I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time…
… why didn't I learn to treat everything like it was the last time, my greatest regret is how much I believed in the future.”

Jonathan Safran Foer (1977) Novelist

Books, Time, Future

“People are more than one thing. Warlocks, no less. I would not even hesitate to say that Malcolm once did much good, before he did evil. It is one of the great lessons of growing up, learning that people can do both.”

Cassandra Clare book Lady Midnight

Source: Lady Midnight

People, Evil

“It’s vital that you accept yourself and learn to be happy with who God made you to be. If you want to truly enjoy your life, you must be at peace with yourself.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Life, God, Happiness, Peace

“One of the secrets, and pleasures, of cooking is to learn to correct something if it goes awry; and one of the lessons is to grin and bear it if it cannot be fixed.”

Julia Child My Life in France

Source: My Life in France

Pleasure, Secret, Cooking

“How old do you have to get before wisdom descends like a plastic bag over your head and you learn to keep your big mouth shut? Maybe never. Maybe you get more frivolous with age.”

Margaret Atwood book The Robber Bride

Source: The Robber Bride

Wisdom, Age

“I have learned that one should say "Peace!" to those who shout their hatred for one's being and presence or at one's passage.”

Tariq Ramadan (1962) Swiss muslim scholar

Source: What I Believe

Peace

“Many… have learned that the magnitude of lives is not as to their external displacements, but as to their subjective experiences. The impressionable peasant leads a larger, fuller, more dramatic life than the pachydermatous king.”

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) English novelist and poet

Source: Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Life

“Any fool can spend money. But to earn it and save it and defer gratification—then you learn to value it differently.”

Malcolm Gladwell (1963) journalist and science writer

Source: David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

Money, Fools

“None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learned to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom, or indifference over his inward joy.”

Gaston Leroux book The Phantom of the Opera

Source: The Phantom of the Opera

Sadness, Joy, Indifference

“You are more likely to learn something by finding surprises in your own behavior than by hearing surprising facts about people in general.”

Daniel Kahneman book Thinking, Fast and Slow

Source: Thinking, Fast and Slow

People, Behavior

“You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.”

George MacDonald book The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Source: The Day Boy and the Night Girl

Strong

“There is nothing more notable in Socrates than that he found time, when he was an old man, to learn music and dancing, and thought it time well spent.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book III, Ch. 13
Attributed
Source: The Complete Essays

Music, Time, Dance

“Remember the two benefits of failure. First, if you do fail, you learn what doesn't work; and second, the failure gives you the opportunity to try a new approach.”

Roger von Oech (1948) Creativity theorist and inventor

Failure

“For a human being, nothing comes naturally,” said Grumman. “We have to learn everything we do.”

Philip Pullman book The Subtle Knife

Stanislaus Grumman to Lee Scoresby in Ch. 14 : Alamo Gulch
Source: His Dark Materials, The Subtle Knife (1997)

Nature

“You have to learn to smile through your pain. Sometimes it’s all we got.”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Born of the Night

Pain, Smile

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.”

Sam Keen (1931) author, professor, and philosopher

Variant: Love isn't finding a perfect person. It's seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
Source: To Love and Be Loved

Love, Personality, Perfection, Relationship

“You can swim, too." he says. "Where did you learn that in District Twelve?"
"We have a very big bathtub.”

Suzanne Collins (1962) American television writer and novelist

“Everything I learned in my life, I learned because I decided to try something new.”

David Lynch (1946) American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor

Life

“They dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.”

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) Italian philosopher, mathematician and astronomer

"Introductory Epistle : Argument of the Third Dialogue"
On the Infinite Universe and Worlds (1584)
Context: After it hath been seen how the obstinate and the ignorant of evil disposition are accustomed to dispute, it will further be shewn how disputes are wont to conclude; although others are so wary that without losing their composure, but with a sneer, a smile, a certain discreet malice, that which they have not succeeded in proving by argument — nor indeed can it be understood by themselves — nevertheless by these tricks of courteous disdain they pretend to have proven, endeavouring not only to conceal their own patently obvious ignorance but to cast it on to the back of their adversary. For they dispute not in order to find or even to seek Truth, but for victory, and to appear the more learned and strenuous upholders of a contrary opinion. Such persons should be avoided by all who have not a good breastplate of patience.

Truth, Appearance, Victory, Personality

“Root out the violence in your life, and learn to live compassionately and mindfully. Seek peace. When you have peace within, real peace with others is possible.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Life, Peace, Peaceful

“For you often learn more by being wrong for the right reasons than you do by being right for the wrong reasons.”

Norton Juster book The Phantom Tollbooth

Source: The Phantom Tollbooth

“What you need to learn, children, is the difference between right and wrong in every area of life. And once you learn the difference, you must always choose the right.”

Jeanne DuPrau The City of Ember

Source: The City of Ember

Life, Children

“It is easy to get everything you want, provided you first learn to do without the things you cannot get.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“I wanted to learn more of love- that is built not on the shifting sands of violent passion but on the steady rock of deep and abiding affection.”

Eleanor Hibbert (1906–1993) English novelist

Source: The Shadow of the Lynx

Love, Passion

“Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.”

Laurie Anderson (1947) American musician

Books, World, Literature

“Some parents let their young kids win at games, but mine never did.

I don't think it was because they were particularly competitive, they just wanted to teach me a valuable lesson.

Life is mostly just learning how to lose.”

Brian K. Vaughan (1976) American screenwriter, comic book creator

Source: Saga, Vol. 3

Life, Game, Thinking, Parent

“Stay mad, but behave like normal people. Run the risk of being different, but learn to do so without attracting attention.”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

People, Madness

“In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn than to contemplate.”

René Descartes (1596–1650) French philosopher, mathematician, and scientist

“Joel, lad, school is about learning to learn. If you don't practice studying things you don't like, then you'll have a very hard time in life.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Rithmatist

Life, School, Study, Time

“Life, I've learned, is never fair. If they teach anything in schools, that should be it.”

Nicholas Sparks (1965) American writer and novelist

Life, School

“The last introvert in a world of extroverts. Silence: my response to both emptiness and saturation. But silence frightens people. I had to learn how to talk. Out of politeness.”

Ariel Gore (1970) American writer

Source: Atlas of the Human Heart

People, World, Silence

“When you are crazy you learn to keep quiet.”

Philip K. Dick book VALIS

VALIS

“Life is such a miracle, a series of small miracles. It really is, if you learn how to look at it with the right perspective.”

James Patterson book Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

Life

“What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary?”

Jonathan Lethem book The Fortress of Solitude

Source: The Fortress of Solitude

Age, Boy

“Things have their root and their branches. Affairs have their end and their beginning. To know what is first and what is last will lead near to what is taught in the Great Learning.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Source: The Great Learning

“All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.”

Jean Paul Sartre book Nausea

Nausea (1938)

Life, Books

“Life must be kept up at a great rate in order to absorb any considerable amount of learning.”

Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet

Life

“In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.”

Doris Lessing book Martha Quest

Martha Quest (1952), Part III, ch. 2

Law, Fools, Universe, Parting

“Not that it was beautiful,
but that, in the end, there was
a certain sense of order there;
something worth learning
in that narrow diary of my mind”

Anne Sexton (1928–1974) poet from the United States

Source: To Bedlam and Part Way Back

Beauty, Sense

“I should be doing my homework now. But the way I look at it, playing in the snow is a lot more important. Out here I'm learning real skills that I can apply throughout the rest of my life.

- Such as?

- Procrastination and rationalization.”

Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes

Source: Calvin and Hobbes

Life, Way

“I early learned that it is a hard matter to convert an individual by abusing him, and that this is more often accomplished by giving credit for all the praiseworthy actions performed than by calling attention alone to all the evil done.”

Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor

Source: Up From Slavery: An Autobiography

Evil

“I learned long ago never to wrestle with a pig. … You get dirty and besides the pig likes it.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Initially attributed to Cyrus S. Ching in Time, Vol. 56 (1950), p. 21.
Misattributed
Variant: Never wrestle with pigs. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.

Funny

“We may get knocked down on the outside, but the key to living in victory is to learn how to get up on the inside.”

Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author

Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential

Victory

“Every day is lost in which we do not learn something useful. Man has no nobler or more valuable possession than time.”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

Time

“I learned the bad guys are not always bad, the good guys are not always good, and to quote Captain Barbossa, the parameters are like rules, mostly guidelines. And that it takes a little bit of bad boy to fight the evil in the world.
--Terri Mitchell”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Phantom in the Night

World, Guy, Quotes, Boy

“Learn to recognize omens, and follow them”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

“How much to learn if we could spend one hour, spend twenty minutes, with the us we will become! How much could we say to the us we were.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

“I suppose [my life] has most resembled a blue chip stock: fairly stable, more ups than downs, and gradually trending upward over time. A good buy, a lucky buy, and I've learned that not everyone can say that about his life.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life, Time

“Do the best you can in every task, no matter how unimportant it may seem at the time. No one learns more about a problem than the person at the bottom.”

Sandra Day O'Connor (1930) Former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Problem, Time, Personality

“Fear dims when you learn things.”

Lois Lowry Son

Source: Son

Fear

“People will tell you most of the story… and I’ve learned that the part they neglect to tell you is often the most important part. People hide the truth because they’re afraid.”

Nicholas Sparks book Safe Haven

Source: Safe Haven

People, Truth, Parting

“I have never learned to hate. Don't let my first lesson come from you.”

Susan Carroll (1952) American writer

Hate

“I done learned my mistake and learned to do what's right by it. You still trying to get something for nothing. Life don't owe you nothing. You owe it to yourself.
- Troy”

August Wilson Fences

Source: Fences

Life

“Learning to read is probably the most difficult and revolutionary thing that happens to the human brain and if you don't believe that, watch an illiterate adult try to do it.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

Reading

“I had learned this lesson so many times
before. It was the great inner truth that
didn't require the support of logic. Every
time I loved, I lost, and I was diminished.
I wondered how much of me would be left
after tomorrow.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Love, Truth, Support, Time

“Weapons may be carried by creatures who are evil, dishonest, violent or lazy. The true warrior is good, gentle and honest. His bravery comes from within himself; he learns to conquer his own fears and misdeeds.

—Matthias”

Brian Jacques book Mattimeo

Source: Mattimeo

Fear, Evil

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work and learning from failure.”

Colin Powell (1937) Former U.S. Secretary of State and retired four-star general

As quoted in The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell (2003) by Oren Harari, p. 164.
2000s

Secret, Failure, Success, Success

“I’ve learned to value failed conversations, missed connections, confusions. What remains is what’s unsaid, what’s underneath. Understanding on another level of being.”

Anna Kamieńska (1920–1986) Poet, writer and translator

Understanding

“Time is an unkind teacher, delivering lessons that we learn far too late for them to be useful. Years after I could have benefited from them, the insights come to me.”

Robin Hobb book Fool's Assassin

Source: Fool's Assassin

Teachers, Time

“Sex lies at the root of life, and we can never learn to reverence life until we know how to understand sex.”

H. Havelock Ellis (1859–1939) British physician, writer, and social reformer

Life, Sex, Understanding

“Someone can break your heart, leave you dead on the lawn, and still you never learn what to say to stop it all over again.”

Daniel Handler book Adverbs

Source: Adverbs

Heart, Dead, Sad

“have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist

“Those who love peace must learn to organize as effectively as those who love war.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Love, War, Peace, Peaceful

“What I have learned in this life is you can never be ashamed of where you come from.”

Tyler Perry (1966) American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, producer, author, and songwriter

Life

“And so it is that you learn how to pass, if you're lucky, to look like everyone else, even though you're broken inside.”

Christina Baker Kline (1964) American writer

Source: Orphan Train

“I learned so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

People

“I mean, how would anyone learn anything if they weren't curious? How would scientists make discoveries? -- We all have the right to be different, don't we?”

Annette Curtis Klause (1953) American writer and librarian

“It's taken me years of practice to learn how to act natural.”

Craig Clevenger The Contortionist's Handbook

Source: The Contortionist's Handbook

Nature

“There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing.”

Lorraine Hansberry A Raisin in the Sun

Mama, Act III
A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
Context: There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing. Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him; what he's been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most; when they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning — because that ain't the time at all. It's when he's at his lowest and can't believe in hisself 'cause the world done whipped him so. When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.

Love

“Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught,”

Winston S. Churchill (1874–1965) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

In debate http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1952/nov/04/debate-on-the-address in the House of Commons, 4 Nov 1952 Post-war years (1945–1955) Variant: Personally, I'm always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. Context: Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught, but I shall not attempt to foreshadow the proposals which will be brought before the House tomorrow. Today it will be sufficient and appropriate to deal with the obvious difficulties and confusion of the situation as we found it on taking office.

Personality

“Mark: When did you learn to drive?
Courtney: About three seconds ago.”

D.J. MacHale (1955) American television director and producer

“It's just that in the Deep South, women learn at a young age that when the world is falling apart around you, it's time to take down the drapes and make a new dress.”

Karen Marie Moning (1964) author

Source: Faefever

Women, Age, World, Time

“Joel Cairo: You always have a very smooth explanation ready.
Sam Spade: What do you want me to do, learn to stutter?”

Dashiell Hammett book The Maltese Falcon

Source: The Maltese Falcon

“Heartache, Daphne eventually learned, never really went away; it just dulled. The sharp, stabbing pain that one felt with each breath eventually gave way to a blunter, lower ache—the kind that one could almost—but never quite—ignore.”

Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist

Source: The Duke and I

Pain, Way

“Instead of being presented with stereotypes by age, sex, color, class, or religion, children must have the opportunity to learn that within each range, some people are loathsome and some are delightful.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

Twentieth Century Faith : Hope and Survival (1972), p. 61
1970s

Children, People, Age, Religion

“For children love is a feeling; for adults, it is a decision. Children wait to learn if their love is true by seeing how long it lasts; adults make their love true by never wavering from their commitment.”

Orson Scott Card book Pathfinder

Source: Pathfinder

Love, Children, Feeling, Decision

“The truth is, almost everything we do is done poorly when we first start doing it – that’s how we learn.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

Source: The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Truth

“Ever, if I’ve learned nothing else in my six hundred years of living, it’s that people hate change almost as much as they hate for their beliefs to be challenged.”

Alyson Nöel (1965) writer

Source: Night Star

Hate, People, Change

“The major problem of life is learning how to handle the costly interruptions. The door that slams shut, the plan that got sidetracked, the marriage that failed. Or that lovely poem that didn't get written because someone knocked on the door.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Love, Life, Marriage, Problem

“The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”

David Russell (1953) Scottish classical guitarist

Life

“You don’t learn unless you question.”

Warren Berger (1958) American writer

A More Beautiful Question: The Power of Inquiry to Spark Breakthrough Ideas

Question

“Time is the school in which we learn,
Time is the fire in which we burn.”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"Calmly We Walk Through This April's Day" ( full text online http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/calmly-we-walk-through-this-april-s-day/); this poem has also been printed under the title "For Rhoda" Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959) Context: Each minute bursts in the burning room, The great globe reels in the solar fire, Spinning the trivial and unique away. (How all things flash! How all things flare!) What am I now that I was then? May memory restore again and again The smallest color of the smallest day: Time is the school in which we learn, Time is the fire in which we burn.

School, Time

“What does learning mean: accumulating knowledge or transforming your life?”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: The Witch Of Portobello

Life, Knowledge

“It is life, I think, to watch the water. A man can learn so many things.”

Nicholas Sparks book The Notebook

Source: The Notebook

Life, Thinking, Water

“No chance. It'd be like cutting off our hands."
"Then learn to live without your hands."
"No, because then we won't be able to do this," Ben says, giving him the finger […]”

Melina Marchetta book On the Jellicoe Road

Source: On the Jellicoe Road