Quotes about learning
page 19

“Until we accept the fact that life itself is founded in mystery, we shall learn nothing.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

“Well, every little boy thinks he invented sin. Virtue we think we learn, because we are told about it. But sin is our own designing.”

John Steinbeck book East of Eden

Source: East of Eden

Boy, Thinking

“I began to learn the importance of lifting things up and looking underneath.”

Deb Caletti (1963) American writer

Source: The Secret Life of Prince Charming

“I learned to observe the world around me, and to note what I saw”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

World

“I dance for no reason, for reasons you can't dance,
Call me an activist of intellectualized circumstance
You can't learn my steps until you unlearn your thoughts Spirit, soul, can't be store-bought.”

Saul Williams (1972) American singer, musician, poet, writer, and actor

Soul, Dance

“Learning does not make one learned: there are those who have knowledge and those who have understanding. The first requires memory and the second philosophy.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Understanding, Knowledge, Memory

“If you live long enough, you'll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you'll be a better person. It's how you handle adversity, not how it affects you. The main thing is never quit, never quit, never quit.”

Bill Clinton (1946) 42nd President of the United States

Personality, Life

“Reading is important, because if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.”

Tomie dePaola (1934) American children's illustrator and writer

Reading

“Learning not to crumple before these uncertainties fuels my resolve to print myself upon the texture of each day fully rather than forever.”

Audre Lorde (1934–1992) writer and activist

“What she mostly wanted, he learned, was the same thing many people want--someone to notice she was there.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

People

“Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

“Friends you will have need of, for in you two worlds meet. There is no one on both sides with you, so you must learn to take your own counsel; and not to fear what is strange, if you know it also to be true.
—Luthe”

Robin McKinley book The Blue Sword

Source: The Blue Sword

World, Fear

“She had been forced into prudence in her youth, she learned romance as she grew older: the natural sequel of an unnatural beginning.”

Jane Austen book Persuasion

Source: Persuasion

Youth, Nature

“In my few short years I learned that seeing what's positive about a situation is a lot more fun and gets you a lot further than looking for what might be wrong with it.”

D.J. MacHale book The Lost City of Faar

Source: The Lost City of Faar

“I’ve not learned the acceptable way of saying you fascinate me… I’ve not even learned how to say I like you without frightening people away”

Nikki Giovanni (1943) American writer and academic

People, Way

“The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you're in control of your life. If you don't, life controls you.”

Anthony Robbins (1960) Author, actor, professional speaker

Life, Pain, Pleasure, Secret

“Travel is rich with learning opportunities, and the ultimate sourvenir is a broader perspective.”

Rick Steves (1955) US travel writer

Travel

“Writing is like breathing, it's possible to learn to do it well, but the point is to do it no matter what.”

Julia Cameron (1948) American writer

Source: The Right to Write: An Invitation and Initiation into the Writing Life

“I want to be with God all the time. But I don't want to be a monk, or totally give up worldly pleasures. I guess what i want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God.”

Elizabeth Gilbert (1969) American writer

God, Pleasure, World, Time

“Weaseling out of things is important to learn. It's what separates us from the animals… except the weasel.”

Matt Groening (1954) American cartoonist

Animals

“Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn fast.”

William Nicholson movie Shadowlands

Source: Shadowlands (1993)

Teachers

“The lesson I was learning involved the idea that I could feel compassion for people without acting on it.”

Melody Beattie (1948) American writer

Source: Beyond Codependency: And Getting Better All the Time

People, Feeling, Idea

“Imagine how much easier it would be for us to learn how to love if we began with a shared definition.”

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

Love, Imagination

“But I do think that when people say 'a learning curve,' they make a mistake. Learning to me always seems to go in a straight, ignorant line and then, every so often, takes a jump straight upward.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Enchanted Glass

Source: Enchanted Glass

People, Thinking

“Learn to watch your drama unfold while at the same time knowing you are more than your drama.”

Ram Dass (1931–2019) American contemporary spiritual teacher and the author of the 1971 book Be Here Now

Time

“The only really happy people are those who have learned how to serve.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

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

Happiness, People

“Anyone who can't learn from other people's mistakes simply can't learn, and that; s all there is to it. There is value in the wrong way of doing things. The knowledge gained from errors contributes to our knowledge base.”

Ben Carson (1951) 17th and current United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development; American neurosurgeon

Source: Think Big: Unleashing Your Potential for Excellence

People, Way, Error, Knowledge

“Now I understand one of the important reasons for going to college and getting an education is to learn that the things you've believed in all your life aren't true, and that nothing is what it appears to be.”

Daniel Keyes book Flowers for Algernon

Source: Flowers for Algernon (1966)

Life, Education, Understanding, Appearance

“When you go to a country, you must learn how to say two things: how to ask for food, and to tell a woman that you love her. Of these the second is more important, for if you tell a woman you love her, she will certainly feed you.”

Louis L'Amour (1908–1988) Novelist, short story writer

Love, Food, Country

“She learned that an act intended to express love could have nothing to do with it. That her heart and her body were different things.”

Jhumpa Lahiri book The Lowland

Source: The Lowland

Love, Heart

“Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others’ experience.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Fools

“The more a man knows, the more willing he is to learn. The less a man knows, the more positive he is that he knows everything…”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant, are necessary in order to learn what we need to learn; whatever steps we take, they're necessary to reach the places we've chosen to go.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

The Bridge Across Forever (1984)
Source: The Bridge Across Forever: A True Love Story

“Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

Source: Postscript to the Name of the Rose

Mountain

“Every time I learn the truth about something, I’m disappointed”

Chuck Klosterman Eating the Dinosaur

Source: Eating the Dinosaur

Truth, Disappointment, Time

“But I have learned that you can't just create your own timetable and will it to come true.”

Emily Giffin Something Borrowed

Source: Something Borrowed

“Let us cry for the, by all means, if by doing so we learn how to avoid spilling any more. Let us cry for the, and remember how, and where, and why, we spilt it. Much wisdom is learnt through tears, but none by forgetting our lessons.”

María Amparo Ruiz de Burton (1832–1895) Mexican-American writer

Source: The Squatter and the Don

Wisdom, Tear, Cry, Forgetting

“Mortal, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in all my years, it’s this: lies are curses you place on yourself.”

Kresley Cole book Dead of Winter

Source: Dead of Winter

“True happiness comes not when we get rid of all of our problems, but when we change our relationship to them, when we see our problems as a potential source of awakening, opportunities to practice, and to learn.”

Richard Carlson (1961–2006) Author, psychotherapist and motivational speaker

Source: Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life

Happiness, Problem, Change

“I learned that the world didn't see the inside of you, that it didn't care a whit about the hopes and dreams, and sorrows, that lay masked by skin and bone. It was as simple, as absurd, and as cruel as that.”

Khaled Hosseini book And the Mountains Echoed

Source: And the Mountains Echoed

World, Dreams, Hope

“How teach again, however, what has been taught correctly and incorrectly learned a thousand thousand times, throughout the millenniums of mankind's prudent folly? That is the hero's ultimate difficult task.”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Source: The Hero With a Thousand Faces

Time

“I’ve seen how you can’t learn anything when you’re trying to look like the smartest person in the room.”

Barbara Kingsolver The Poisonwood Bible

Source: The Poisonwood Bible

Personality

“Life is still life. It’s still tough, complicated, and more than a little messy, with lessons to be learned, mistakes to be made, triumphs and disappointments to be had, and not every day is meant to be a party.”

Alyson Nöel book Dark Flame

Source: Dark Flame

Life, Disappointment

“Emotions are the end result, the sum, of things learned”

Terry Goodkind book Confessor

Source: Confessor

“The two important things that I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision.”

Robyn Davidson (1950) Australian writer

Source: Tracks

Decision, Strong, Parting

“She learned the intricacy of loneliness: the horror of color, the roar of soundlessness and the menace of familiar objects lying still.”

Toni Morrison A Mercy

Source: A Mercy

Color, Lying, Loneliness

“Even a fool learns something once it hits him.”

Homér Iliad

Source: Iliad

Fools

“When you wish to instruct, be brief; that men's [children's] minds take in quickly what you say, learn its lesson, and retain it faithfully. Every word that is unnecessary only pours over the side of a brimming mind.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Men, Children

“Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, and teachers.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Teachers

“I'm not sure you get wiser as you get older, Starling, but you do learn to dodge a certain amount of hell.”

Thomas Harris The Silence of the Lambs

Source: The Silence of the Lambs

Hell

“He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.”

Holly Black book Doll Bones

Source: Doll Bones

“I’ve learned that everything happens for a reason,” the yogi Krishnan told him. “Every event has a why and all adversity teaches us a lesson… Never regret your past. Accept it as the teacher that it is.”

Robin S. Sharma book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Source: The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Teachers, Past

“She was learning to love moments. To love moments for themselves.”

Gwendolyn Brooks (1917–2000) American writer

Love

“I've learned that it doesn't matter how your husband squeezes the toothpaste, the important thing is how he squeezes you.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

“I've learned that if you wait long enough, you might get a second chance at something you gave up on. And sometimes you'll be the one to give the second chance to someone else.”

Wendy Mass (1967) American children's writer

Source: 13 Gifts

Chance, Waiting

“Once I learned, I went online and ordered every romance novel I could find. They're fairy tales for grown-ups.”

Gena Showalter (1975) American writer

Source: The Darkest Night

“Retribution is tricky…. The insult isn't usually worth the risk of punishment. And eventually one learns that karma has a surprising way of taking care of these situations. All you have to do is sit back and watch.”

Candace Bushnell book One Fifth Avenue

Source: One Fifth Avenue

Way

“Once you learn what life is about, there is no way to erase that knowledge. If you try to do something else with your life, you will always sense that you are missing something”

James Redfield (1950) American author, lecturer, screenwriter and film producer

Source: The Celestine Prophecy: A Pocket Guide to the Nine Insights

Life, Way, Knowledge, Sense

“If I can learn to understand this language without words, I can learn to understand the world.”

Paulo Coelho book The Alchemist

Source: The Alchemist

World, Understanding

“Sleep every chance you get. Eat every chance you get. Those were two of the many lessons that Kat learned at her father’s knee and her uncle’s table.”

Ally Carter (1974) American writer

Source: Perfect Scoundrels

Sleep, Chance

“Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not attracting attention with it, hotheadedness isn't.”

Harper Lee book To Kill a Mockingbird

Pt. 1, ch. 9
Atticus Finch
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird (1962)

Children, Time

“… One thing you learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.”

Neal Shusterman book Unwind

Variant: One thing yo learn when you've lived as long as I have-people aren't all good, and people aren't all bad. We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I'm pleased to be in the light.
Source: Unwind

People, Light

“You can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Life, Death, Light

“It was the first time I was ever in love, and I learned a lot. Before that I'd never even thought about killing myself.”

Steven Wright (1955) American actor and author

Love, Time

“But love may have to be left off the exam. Most of us will never learn.”

Robert Fulghum book All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Source: All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

Love

“It's very hard in the beginning to understand that the whole idea is not
to beat the other runners. Eventually you learn that the competition is
against the little voice inside you that wants you to quit.”

George Sheehan Irish footballer

Idea, Understanding

“Accept what you are able to do and what you are not able to do. Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. Learn to forgive yourself and to forgive others. Don't assume that it's too late to get involved.”

Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie

Source: Tuesdays with Morrie

Forgiveness, Past

“Learn from the mistakes of others you won't have time to make them all your self”

Jill Shalvis (1963) American writer

Source: Simply Irresistible

Time

“Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking her hair.
"No," she answered. "I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett A Little Princess

Source: A Little Princess

Heart

William Sleator (1945–2011) Young adult science fiction novelist

Source: The Beasties

People, Books

“I've learned that you know your husband still loves you when there are two brownies left and he takes the smaller one.”

H. Jackson Brown, Jr. (1940) American writer

Love

“Sebastos Eudorus Parthenopaeus. He is really going to hate us when he has to learn to spell all that.” – Acheron”

Sherrilyn Kenyon (1965) Novelist

Source: Retribution

Hate

“There in that pool stained with green blood, he had learned two things: one was that all the pain stopped when you stopped fighting death; and the other was that as long as you could still hear your heart beating, you had to keep fighting back.”

Ryū Murakami book Coin Locker Babies

Source: Coin Locker Babies

Death, Pain, Heart, Fight

“Shall I tell you the secret of the true scholar? It is this: Every man I meet is my master in some point, and in that I learn of him.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Greatness <br class="br">1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books, Letters and Social Aims http://www.rwe.org/comm/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=5&id=74&Itemid=149 (1876)

Secret

“Life is lumpy. And a lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in a breast are not the same lump. One should learn the difference.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

Source: Uh-oh - Some Observations From Both Sides Of The Refrigerator Door

Life

“The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn but to unlearn.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Women, Men, Problem

“the moment you stop learning, you stop leading.”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

“You make do with what you have. As you age you learn even to be happy with what you have.”

Haruki Murakami book What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Source: What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Happiness, Age

“If you don't know, the thing to do is not to get scared, but to learn.”

Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged

Source: Atlas Shrugged

“This is a writer’s lesson:
To learn that the sounds that we imagine can be the clearest, loudest sounds of all.”

John Irving book Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

Source: Trying to Save Piggy Sneed

Imagination

“Literature is my Utopia. Here I am not disenfranchised. No barrier of the senses shuts me out from the sweet, gracious discourse of my book friends. They talk to me without embarrassment or awkwardness. The things I have learned and the things I have been taught seem of ridiculously little importance compared with their "large loves and heavenly charities."”

Helen Keller book The Story of My Life

Source: The Story of My Life (1903), Ch. 21

Love, Books, Literature, Sense

“How we live is so different from how we ought to live that he who studies what ought to be done rather than what is done will learn the way to his downfall rather than to his preservation.”

Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince

Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 15
Context: Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.

Way, Study