Quotes about learning
page 24

Michael Foot photo
Halldór Laxness photo
Georgia O'Keeffe photo
Bhakti Tirtha Swami photo
Sarada Devi photo

“Does one get faith by mere studying of books? Too much reading creates confusion. The Master used to say that one should learn from the scriptures that God alone is real and the world illusory.”

Sarada Devi (1853–1920) Hindu religious figure, spiritual consort of Ramakrishna

[Swami Tapasyananda, Swami Nikhilananda, Sri Sarada Devi, the Holy Mother; Life and Conversations, 348]

Benoît Mandelbrot photo
Joseph Conrad photo
Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton photo

“Only by knowledge of that which is not thyself, shall thyself be learned.”

Robert Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Earl of Lytton (1831–1891) English statesman and poet

"Γνωθι Σεαυτον" ("Know Thyself"), in The Poetical Works of Owen Meredith (1867), Vol. I, p. 247.

Gore Vidal photo
Mao Zedong photo

“We must learn to look at problems all-sidedly, seeing the reverse as well as the obverse side of things. In given conditions, a bad thing can lead to good results and a good thing to bad results.”

Mao Zedong (1893–1976) Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China

On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People

Hillary Clinton photo
Yehudi Menuhin photo
H. G. Wells photo
Theresa May photo
Larry Niven photo

“We learn only to ask more questions.”

Source: The Ringworld Engineers (1980), p. 59

Mario Vargas Llosa photo

“They learn about the kinds of creativity that leads to visionary solutions”

Roger Smith (executive) (1925–2007) CEO

Attributed to Roger Smith in: Seyhan N. Ege et al. (1997) " The university of Michigan undergraduate chemistry curriculum 1. philosophy, curriculum, and the nature of change. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bcoppola/publications/21.%20p74-83.pdf" Journal of Chemical Education, 74(1), p. 75
S.N. Edge is quoting here Roger B. Smith, then Chairman of General Motors Corporation, who was speaking in October 1985 at the University of Michigan about the question "What is a liberal art?"

Horatius Bonar photo
Ernest Hemingway photo
Andrew Dickson White photo
Aubrey Beardsley photo
Billy Simmonds photo
Ivar Giaever photo
James Comey photo

“We simply must speak to each other honestly about all these hard truths. In the words of Dr. King, 'We must learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools.”

James Comey (1960) American lawyer and the seventh director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

2010s, Hard Truths: Law Enforcement (2015)

Gore Vidal photo

“Happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.”

Gore Vidal (1925–2012) American writer

"The State of the Union," The Nation (13 September 2004)
2000s

Richard Wilhelm photo

“Chinese is the easiest language when it is learned at ease, dwelling on its spirit rather than on the individual expression. But for inquisitive questioners, this language provides vain pitfalls.”

Richard Wilhelm (1873–1930) German sinologist

Chinesisch ist die leichteste Sprache, wenn sie unbefangen gelernt wird, vom Sinn her eher als vom Einzelausdruck. Aber für neugierige Frager bietet die Sprache eitel Tücken.
Die Seele Chinas. Berlin, Hobbing, 1926

Francis Bacon photo
Dave Keon photo

“Most kids today slap the puck. The backhand takes time to learn. It's not something you do naturally. But it is an effective shot.”

Dave Keon (1940) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Dave Keon," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198602.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2002-04-15)

Jane Roberts photo
José Rizal photo
Robert Burton photo

“Out of too much learning become mad.”

Section 4, member 1, subsection 2.
The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III

Vitruvius photo
Robert A. Dahl photo
Vitruvius photo
Joe Strummer photo
Howard S. Becker photo
George Frideric Handel photo

“Händel is the unattained master of all masters. Go and learn from him how to achieve vast effects with simple means.”

George Frideric Handel (1685–1759) German, later British Baroque composer

Criticism

Jimmy Buffett photo

“As a dreamer of dreams and a travelin' man,
I have chalked up many a mile.
Read dozens of books about heroes and crooks,
And I've learned much from both of their styles.”

Jimmy Buffett (1946) American singer–songwriter and businessman

Son of a Son of a Sailor
Song lyrics, Son of a Son of a Sailor (1978)

Merle Haggard photo

“A Ku Klux Klan member would be mortified to learn that he was actually a Black man. Many people’s reaction to learning that they are actually animals, or actually apes, is the same.”

Source: Darwin, God and the Meaning of Life: How Evolutionary Theory Undermines Everything You Think You Know (2010), p. 156

Joseph E. Stiglitz photo

“My teachers helped guide and motivate me; but the responsibility of learning was left with me.”

Joseph E. Stiglitz (1943) American economist and professor, born 1943.

Autobiographical Essay (2001)

Yehudi Menuhin photo

“What guides us is children's response, their joy in learning to dance, to sing, to live together. It should be a guide to the whole world.”

Yehudi Menuhin (1916–1999) American violinist and conductor

Source: Tessa Souter Anything I Can Do... You Can Do Better: How to unlock your creative dreams and change your life http://books.google.co.in/books?id=GJzWPzwI79kC&pg=PA156, Random House, 31 July 2011, p. 156

Charles Lyell photo
Thiruvalluvar photo
Newton Lee photo
Jules Payot photo
Orison Swett Marden photo
Matthew Arnold photo

“I am bound by my own definition of criticism: a disinterested endeavour to learn and propagate the best that is known and thought in the world.”

Matthew Arnold (1822–1888) English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools

The Functions of Criticism at the Present Time (1864)

“As in any discipline, to become good you need first to learn the rules. To become great, you need to break them.”

Tim Hurson (1946) Creativity theorist, author and speaker

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Peter Sloterdijk photo
Albert Einstein photo
Orson Welles photo

“I speak from ignorance.
Who once learned much, but speaks from ignorance now.”

Nathaniel Tarn (1928) American poet, essayist, anthropologist, and translator

Poem Last of the Chiefs published in: Nathaniel Tarn (1965) Old savage, young city. p. 18.

“Philosophy establishes itself as a discourse by opposition to the authority of received opinion, especially the opinions sedimented as cult and as law. Philosophy puts into question the authority of what has been handed down. It is not just that there is a critique of philosophic authorities; rather, philosophy appears to be characterized by rejection of intellectual authority as such. How is philosophy to distinguish, then, a permissible authority from those many impermissible authorities which it must reject if it is to survive?
Perhaps it would be better to avoid the quandary altogether by dismissing authority in order to consider only the "content" of the claims under consideration, regardless of their pretensions. The dismissal fails for at least two reasons. The first is that there are no claims in philosophic texts that are wholly free at least from the implicit constructions of authority. If criticism takes only the content, then it ends up with something other than the texts that have constituted the discourse of philosophy. There is no Platonic "theory of Forms" dissociable from the Platonic pedagogy, that is, from the teaching authority of the Platonic Socrates. The second reason for not being able to dismiss authority altogether is that the very criticism that wants to look only at contents will impose itself as an authority in its choice of procedure. One will still have authority, but an authority that refuses to raise any question about authority.
Perhaps the question about legitimate authority could be avoided, again, by replying that the obvious criterion for claims in philosophy is the truth. The assumption here is that access to the truth is had entirely apart from the authority of philosophical traditions. Yet it is a biographical fact that one is brought into philosophy by education. First principles are learned most often not by simple observation or by the natural light of reason, but under the tutelage of some authoritative tradition.”

Authority and persuasion in philosophy (1985)

Edwin Arnold photo
Anthony Burgess photo
Bel Kaufmanová photo
Andy Goldsworthy photo
John Updike photo
William Alfred Fowler photo

“It is the great glory of the quest for human knowledge that, while making some small contribution to that quest, we can also continue to learn and to take pleasure in learning.”

William Alfred Fowler (1911–1995) American nuclear physicist

William A. Fowler's speech at the Nobel Banquet http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/fowler-speech.html, December 10, 1983.

Jane Fonda photo

“It's an unfair position, so you can do one of two things: just shut up, which is something I don't find easy, or just learn an awful lot very fast, which is what I tried to do.”

Jane Fonda (1937) American actress and activist

Leo Lerman, Jane Fonda Talks About. Juxtaposition, 1971, said in reference to media reactions to her learning about Indian affairs.

Don Soderquist photo

“What really matters most is your relationship with God.  If you hear and heed nothing else in this book, what I hope and pray what you take with you is a renewed sense  of trust in the plans and purpose our loving God has for your life. With Him, you will have everything you need to best to live, learn, and lead.”

Don Soderquist (1934–2016)

Don Soderquist “ Live Learn Lead to Make a Difference https://books.google.com/books?id=s0q7mZf9oDkC&lpg=pg=PP1&dq=Don%20Soderquist&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false, Thomas Nelson, April 2006 p. 174.
On Trusting God

Paul Klee photo
Averroes photo

“To master this instrument the religious thinker must make a preliminary study of logic, just as the lawyer must study legal reasoning. This is no more heretical in the one case than in the other. And logic must be learned from the ancient masters, regardless of the fact that they were not Muslims.”

Averroes (1126–1198) Medieval Arab scholar and philosopher

The Decisive Treatise
Source: Jon McGinnis, David C. Reisman (2007) Classical Arabic Philosophy: An Anthology of Sources. p. 310

Miyamoto Musashi photo

“If you learn "indoor" techniques, you will think narrowly and forget the true Way. Thus you will have difficulty in actual encounters.”

Miyamoto Musashi (1584–1645) Japanese martial artist, writer, artist

Go Rin No Sho (1645), The Ground Book

Alexander Maclaren photo

“No man loveth God except the man who has first learned that God loves him.”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 398.

Pentti Linkola photo
Carlos Drummond de Andrade photo

“Love is what we learn on the brink,
after we've archived all our inherited
and acquired science. Love begins late.”

Carlos Drummond de Andrade (1902–1987) Brazilian poet

Amor é o que se aprende no limite,
depois de se arquivar toda a ciência
herdada, ouvida. Amor começa tarde.
"Amor e seu tempo" ["The Time of Love"]
As Impurezas do Branco [Impurities of White] (1973)

Ben Carson photo

“Someone told me that creativity is just learning to do something with a different perspective.”

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

Source: Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story (1990), p. 84

Winston S. Churchill photo
John Ruysbroeck photo
Mark Satin photo
Paul Gabriël photo

“Although I can look a bit grumpy myself, I love it when the sun shines in the water, but besides that I think my country is colored and what I particularly noticed when I came from abroad: our country is colored sappy fat, that's why our beautiful- colored and built cattle, their flesh, milk and butter, nowhere you can find this, but they [the cows] are also fed by that sappy, greasy and colored land - I have often heard strangers say, those Dutch painters all paint gray and their land is green.... the more I observe the more colored and transparent nature becomes and then the air seen altogether, something very different and yet so [strong] in harmony, it is delightful when one has learned to see, because that too must be learned, I repeat, our country is not gray, even not in gray weather, the dunes aren't gray either.”

Paul Gabriël (1828–1903) painter (1828-1903)

translation from the Dutch original: Fons Heijnsbroek
version in original Dutch / citaat van Paul Gabriël, in Nederlands: Alhoewel ik er zelf wat knorrig uit kan zien houd ik er veel van dat het zonnetje in het water schijnt, maar buiten dat ik vind mijn land gekleurd en wat mij bijzonder opviel wanneer ik uit den vreemde kwam: ons land is gekleurd sappig vet, vandaar onze schoone gekleurde en gebouwde runderen, hun vleesch melk en boter, nergens vind men dat zoo maar ze worden ook door dat sappige vette en gekleurde land gevoed - ik heb vreemdelingen dikwijls horen zeggen, die Hollandsche schilders schilderen allemaal grijs en hun land is groen.. ..hoe meer ik opserveer hoe gekleurder en transparanter de natuur word en dan de lucht erbij gezien een heel ander iets en toch zoo in harmonie, het is verrukkelijk wanneer men heeft leeren zien, want ook dat moet geleerd worden, ik herhaal het ons land is niet grijs, zelfs niet bij grijs weer, de duinen zijn ook niet grijs.
written note of Paul Gabriël, 1901; as cited in De Haagse School. Hollandse meesters van de 19de eeuw, ed. R. de Leeuw, J. Sillevis en C. Dumas); exhibition. cat. - Parijs, Grand Palais / Londen, Royal Academy of Arts / Den Haag, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Parijs, Londen, Den Haag 1983, p.183 - 23
after 1900

Shaun Ellis photo

“It was really evident that what we were learning from a scientific point of view from wolves wasn't very much. The Native Americans I lived with knew far more about wolves than we ever did. I believe it was because they had the time to live alongside these creatures, to share their world.”

Shaun Ellis (1977) American football player, defensive end

Interview with A Man Among Wolves: Shaun Ellis http://incubator.nationalgeographic.com/inside_ngc/2007/04/interview-with-a-man-among-wolves-shaun-ellis.html, Inside NGS, (2007)

William Henry Davies photo

“From my own kind I only learn
How foolish comfort is”

William Henry Davies (1871–1940) British poet

Comfort.

Lewis M. Branscomb photo
Jeffrey Tucker photo

“District lines assure that the student population is somewhat homogeneous, and that there can be some schools that create an actual learning environment.”

Jeffrey Tucker (1963) American writer

Source: "Jack Kemp, American Socialist" by Jeffrey Tucker, The Rothbard-Rockwell Report, September 1996, UNZ.org, 2016-05-22 http://www.unz.org/Pub/RothbardRockwellReport-1996sep-00001,

Anu Garg photo

“The best way to enrich vocabulary is organically, by coming across words in their natural habitat, taking the time to learn about them, their histories, and making lifelong friends with them.”

Anu Garg (1967) Indian author

The Philomath Speaks An Interview with Anu Garg (Dec 15, 2009) http://www.nas.org/articles/The_Philomath_Speaks_An_Interview_with_Anu_Garg

Matt Ridley photo
Tad Williams photo

“I’m your apprentice!” Simon protested. “When are you going to teach me something?”
“Idiot boy! What do you think I’m doing? I’m trying to teach you to read and to write. That’s the most important thing. What do you want to learn?”
“Magic!” Simon said immediately. Morgenes stared at him.
“And what about reading…?” the doctor asked ominously.
Simon was cross. As usual, people seemed determined to balk him at every turn. “I don’t know,” he said. What’s so important about reading and letters, anyway? Books are just stories about things. Why should I want to read books?”
Morgenes grinned, an old stoat finding a hole in the henyard fence. “Ah, boy, how can I be mad at you…what a wonderful, charming, perfectly stupid thing to say!” The doctor chuckled appreciatively, deep in his throat.
“What do you mean?” Simon’s eyebrows moved together as he frowned. “Why is it wonderful and stupid?”
“Wonderful because I have such a wonderful answer,” Morgenes laughed. Stupid because…because young people are made stupid, I suppose—as tortoises are made with shells, and wasps with stings—it is their protection against life’s unkindnesses.”
“Begging your pardon?” Simon was totally flummoxed now.
“Books,” Morgenes said grandly, leaning back on his precarious stool, “—books are magic. That is the simple answer. And books are traps as well.”
“Magic? Traps?”
“Books are a form of magic—” the doctor lifted the volume he had just laid on the stack, “—because they span time and distance more surely than any spell or charm. What did so-and-so think about such-and-such two hundred years agone? Can you fly back through the ages and ask him? No—or at least, probably not.
But, ah! If he wrote down his thoughts, if somewhere there exists a scroll, or a book of his logical discourses…he speaks to you! Across centuries! And if you wish to visit far Nascadu or lost Khandia, you have also but to open a book….”
“Yes, yes, I suppose I understand all that.” Simon did not try to hide his disappointment. This was not what he had meant by the word “magic.” “What about traps, then? Why ‘traps’?”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Morgenes leaned forward, waggling the leather-bound volume under Simon’s nose. “A piece of writing is a trap,” he said cheerily, “and the best kind. A book, you see, is the only kind of trap that keeps its captive—which is knowledge—alive forever. The more books you have,” the doctor waved an all-encompassing hand about the room, “the more traps, then the better chance of capturing some particular, elusive, shining beast—one that might otherwise die unseen.”
Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 7, “The Conqueror Star” (pp. 92-93).

Isaac Barrow photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo

“They who truly know have had to unlearn hardly less than they have had to learn.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Variant: They who can no longer unlearn have lost the power to learn.
Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 90

“The more I study, the more I learn and absorb, the more I realize how truly little I know.”

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 116

John Napier photo

“Here then (belove reader) thou hast this work devided into two treatises, the first is the said introduction and reasoning, for investigation of the true sense of every cheife Theological tearme and date contained in the Revelation, whereby, not onely is it opened, explained and interpreted, but also that same explanation and interpretation is proved, confirmed and demonstrated, by evidente proofe and coherence of scriptures, agreeable with the event of histories. The seconde is, the principall treatise, in which the whole Apocalyps, Chapter by chapter, Verse by verse, and Sentence by sentence, is both Paraphrastically expounded and Historically applyed. …And because this whole work of Revelation concerneth most the discoverie of the Antichristian and Papisticall kingdome, I have therefore (for removing of all suspition) in al histories and prophane matters, taken my authorities and cited my places either out of Ethnick auctors, or then papistical writers, whose testimonies by no reason can be refuted against themselves. But in matters of divinitie, doctrine & interpretation of mysteries (leaving all opinions of men) I take me onely to the interpretation and discoverie thereof, by coherence of scripture, and godly reasons following thereupon; which also not only no Papist, but even no Christian may justly refuse. And forasmuch as our scripturs herein are of two fortes, the one our ordinary text, the other extraordinary citations; In our ordinary text, I follow not altogether the vulgar English translation, but the best learned in the Greek tong, so that (for satisfying the Papists) I differ nothing from their vulgar text of S. Jerome, as they cal it, except is such places, where I prove by good reasons, that hee differeth from the Original Greek. In the extraordinary texts of other scriptures cited by me, I followe ever Jeromes latine translation, where any controverse stands betwixt us and the Papists, and that moveth me in divers places to insert his very latine text, for their cause, with the just English thereof, for supply of the unlearned.”

John Napier (1550–1617) Scottish mathematician

A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of St. John (1593)

Gabrielle Giffords photo

“Our country must be strong enough to solve problems, and that means we must learn how to work together again.”

Gabrielle Giffords (1970) American politician

Comment after winning re-election — [Giffords wins re-election to U.S. House; Kelly says voters have spoken, Sierra Vista Herald, Arizona, November 6, 2010, Bill Hess]

Roger Scruton photo

“[T]o teach virtue we must educate the emotions, and this means learning "what to feel" in the various circumstances that prompt them.”

Roger Scruton (1944–2020) English philosopher

"Knowledge and Feeling" (p. 37)
Culture Counts (2007)

Auguste Rodin photo

“The sculptor must learn to reproduce the surface, which means all that vibrates on the surface: spirit, soul, love, passion — life. … Sculpture is thus the art of hollows and mounds, not of smoothness, or even polished planes.”

Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) French sculptor

In; Victor Frisch, ‎Joseph Twadell Shipley (1939). Auguste Rodin. p. 203: About the act of creation.
1900s-1940s

Martin Sheen photo

“I learned I had to stand for something so I could stand to be me.”

Martin Sheen (1940) American actor

2000s, Progressive magazine interview (2003)

Jesse Robbins photo

“For every dollar spent in failure, learn a dollar’s worth of lesson.”

Jesse Robbins (1978) American entrepreneur

Quoted in article by Eric Ries about lean startup movement. http://venturehacks.com/articles/five-whys-2

Samuel Johnson photo