Quotes about learning
page 45

“A [learning] style is a disposition to adopt one class of learning strategy.”

Gordon Pask (1928–1996) British psychologist

Source: Learning Strategies, Teaching Strategies, and Conceptual or Learning Style (1988), p. 85.

Arthur Hugh Clough photo

“Each for himself is still the rule
We learn it when we go to school—
The devil take the hindmost, O!”

Arthur Hugh Clough (1819–1861) English poet

In the Great Metropolis http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/C/CloughArthurHugh/verse/poemsproseremains/greatmetropolis.html, st. 1.

Jesse Ventura photo

“Could someone please tell me how this will affect me? Come on, this is Harvard, folks. I came all the way out here to learn this.”

Jesse Ventura (1951) American politician and former professional wrestler

On same-sex marriage.
Harvard interview (February 2004)

Julia Ward Howe photo
Jeffrey Montgomery photo
Martin Luther King, Jr. photo

“Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament.”

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

1950s, Conquering Self-centeredness (1957)
Context: Life has its beginning and its maturity comes into being when an individual rises above self to something greater. Few individuals learn this, and so they go through life merely existing and never living. Now you see signs all along in your everyday life with individuals who are the victims of self-centeredness. They are the people who live an eternal “I.” They do not have the capacity to project the “I” into the “Thou." They do not have the mental equipment for an eternal, dangerous and sometimes costly altruism. They live a life of perpetual egotism. And they are the victims all around of the egocentric predicament. They start out, the minute you talk with them, talking about what they can do, what they have done. They’re the people who will tell you, before you talk with them five minutes, where they have been and who they know. They’re the people who can tell you in a few seconds, how many degrees they have and where they went to school and how much money they have. We meet these people every day. And so this is not a foreign subject. It is not something far off. It is a problem that meets us in everyday life. We meet it in ourselves, we meet in other selves: the problem of selfcenteredness.

John Wooden photo

“Learn as if you were to live forever; live as if you were to die tomorrow.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

They Call Me Coach (1972)

Theodore Roszak photo

“In a time when so many artists have learned to confabulate with extremes of horror and alienation, the most daring thing an artist can do is to fill a book, a gallery, or a theater with joy, hope, and beauty.”

Theodore Roszak (1933–2011) American social historian, social critic, writer

with Betty Roszak, "Deep Form in Art and Nature" Alexandria 4, Vol.4 The Order of Beauty and Nature (1997) ed. David Fideler

Ray Bradbury photo
George Macartney photo
Julian of Norwich photo
Bruce Palmer Jr. photo
B.K.S. Iyengar photo

“Breath is the vehicle of consciousness and so, by its slow measured observation and distribution, we learn to tug our attention away from external desires toward a judicious, intelligent awareness.”

B.K.S. Iyengar (1918–2014) Indian yoga teacher and scholar

Source: Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom, p. 12

Noel Gallagher photo

“He can't paint eyes. He couldn't learn to paint at all.”

Margaret Keane (1927) American artist

Cited in " The lady behind those Keane-eyed kids https://books.google.com/books?id=2FMEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA56," LIFE 69, no. 21 (20 November 1970), p. 56.
1970

Leon Fleisher photo
Fred Astaire photo
Jiddu Krishnamurti photo

“Meditation is not a process of learning how to meditate; it is the very inquiry into what is meditation. To inquire into what is meditation, the mind must free itself from what it has learnt about meditation, and the freeing of the mind from what it has learnt is the beginning of meditation.”

Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986) Indian spiritual philosopher

"Third Talk at Rajghat" (25 December 1955) http://www.jkrishnamurti.com/krishnamurti-teachings/view-text.php?tid=527&chid=4846&w=%22Meditation+is+not+a+process+of+learning+how+to+meditate%22, J.Krishnamurti Online, JKO Serial No. 551225, Vol. IX, p. 192
Posthumous publications, The Collected Works

“Like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.”

A.J.P. Taylor (1906–1990) Historian

Referring to Napoleon III, in "Mistaken Lessons from the Past", The Listener (6 June 1963)

Thérèse of Lisieux photo
Max Horkheimer photo
John H. Disher photo

“For the most part, these are not new lessons, but lessons learned in different circumstances and surroundings. The fact that they are not new is of course a lesson in itself — we must continually strive to benefit from past experiences and structure our management so that past related experience can be brought to bear on current problems.”

John H. Disher (1921–1988) American aeronautical engineer and NASA manager

"Skylab Lessons Learned" (22 September 1975) at NASA Office of Logic Design http://klabs.org/richcontent/Misc_Content/AGC_And_History/Skylab/Skylab_Disher.htm

Woody Allen photo

“I took a course in speed reading, learning to read straight down the middle of the page, and I was able to go through War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about Russia”

Woody Allen (1935) American screenwriter, director, actor, comedian, author, playwright, and musician

Attributed to Allen by Herb Caen in Reader's Digest, October 1967. For additional citations see this entry from Quote Investigator http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/12/08/speed-reading/.

Samuel R. Delany photo
Gary S. Becker photo
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot photo

“The burning cry in all organizations is for “good leadership,” but we have learned that beyond a threshold level of adequacy it is extremely difficult to know what good leadership is.”

Charles Perrow (1925–2019) American sociologist

Source: 1970s, "The short and glorious history of organizational theory", 1973, p. 13

Oliver Goldsmith photo

“Well had the boding tremblers learn'd to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laugh'd with counterfeited glee
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the busy whisper circling round
Convey'd the dismal tidings when he frown'd.
Yet was he kind, or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declar'd how much he knew,
'T was certain he could write and cipher too.”

Variant: A man severe he was, and stern to view;
I knew him well, and every truant knew:
Well had the boding tremblers learned to trace
The day's disasters in his morning face;
Full well they laughed with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he;
Full well the bust whisper, circling round,
Conveyed the dismal tidings when he frowned;
Yet he was kind; or if severe in aught,
The love he bore to learning was in fault;
The village all declared how much he knew;
'Twas certain he could write, and cipher too.
Source: The Deserted Village (1770), Line 199.

Gene Wolfe photo

“There is more to be learned from any good teacher than the subject taught.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

Volume 2, Ch. 1
Fiction, The Book of the Long Sun (1993–1996)

“The peasantry are wiser in their ignorance than the savants of St Petersburg in their learning.”

Source: Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy (1958), Chapter Six, The Flight From Laputa, p. 128

Stevie Wonder photo
Walt Disney photo
Bill Whittle photo

“Treat your past as a book that you learn from instead of a hammer that you beat yourself up about.”

Bill Whittle (1959) author, director, screenwriter, editor

citation needed

River Phoenix photo
Bill Maher photo

“We can't even reform the way we make pennies and nickels. This week we learn that making a penny now costs 2 cents and making a nickel costs 9 cents, which makes no sense.”

Bill Maher (1956) American stand-up comedian

"Apple should take over government" http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=UiZVrzz_zfE&NR=1 May 14, 2010.
Real Time with Bill Maher

Lindsay Lohan photo
Kurien Kunnumpuram photo
Brigham Young photo

“I very well recollect the reformation which took place in the country among the various denominations of Christians-the Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and others-when Joseph was a boy. Joseph's mother, one of his brothers, and one, if not two, of his sisters were members of the Presbyterian Church, and on this account the Presbyterians hung to the family with great tenacity. And in the midst of these revivals among the religious bodies, the invitation, "Come and join our church," was often extended to Joseph, but more particularly from the Presbyterians. Joseph was naturally inclined to be religious, and being young, and surrounded with this excitement, no wonder that he became seriously impressed with the necessity of serving the Lord. But as the cry on every hand was, "Lo, here is Christ," and "Lo, there!" Said he, "Lord, teach me, that I may know for myself, who among these are right." And what was the answer? "They are all out of the way; they have gone astray, and there is none that doeth good, no not one. When he found out that none were right, he began to inquire of the Lord what was right, and he learned for himself. Was he aware of what was going to be done? By no means. He did not know what the Lord was going to do with him, although He had informed him that the Christian churches were all wrong, because they had not the Holy Priesthood, and had strayed from the holy commandments of the Lord, precisely as the children of Israel did.”

Brigham Young (1801–1877) Latter Day Saint movement leader

Journal of Discourses 12:67 (June 23, 1867)
Young’s recollection of religious excitement and events leading up to Joseph Smith, Jr.’s first vision.
1860s

Margaret Mead photo

“Our humanity rests upon a series of learned behaviors, woven together into patterns that are infinitely fragile and never directly inherited.”

Margaret Mead (1901–1978) American anthropologist

As quoted in Familiar Medical Quotations (1968) by Maurice Benjamin Strauss, p. 288
1960s

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“We do not find it hard to bear with ourselves, though we are full of faults. Why then may we not learn to be tolerant of others?”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 238

Kim Stanley Robinson photo
Elizabeth Taylor photo

“Oh God! I'm going to miss him. I can’t yet imagine life without him. But I guess with God’s help… I'll learn. I keep looking at the photo he gave me of himself, which says, 'To my true love Elizabeth, I love you forever.”

Elizabeth Taylor (1932–2011) British-American actress

And, I will love HIM forever.
As quoted in "Michael Jackson: Elizabeth Taylor Honors her good friend" by Dave Karger, Entertainment Weekly (26 June 2009)

Vyasa photo

“To appreciate sculpture is to look, to touch, to sense, to learn and communicate.”

Fred Conlon (1943–2005) Irish sculptor

citation needed
Attributed

Kevin Kelly photo

“A company cannot be a learning company without also being a teaching company.”

Kevin Kelly (1952) American author and editor

Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World (1995)

Michael McIntyre photo
Percy Bysshe Shelley photo

“Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong;
They learn in suffering what they teach in song.”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

Source: Julian and Maddalo http://www.bartleby.com/139/shel115.html (1819), l. 543

Truman Capote photo
Eric R. Kandel photo
Margaret Thatcher photo

“We shall have to learn again to be one nation, or one day we shall be no nation.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Conservative Party television broadcast “Winter of Discontent” (17 January 1979) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/103926
Leader of the Opposition

Rumi photo

“From Hallaj, I learned to hunt lions, but I became something hungrier than a lion.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

"Hallaj" Ch. 11 : Union
Disputed, The Essential Rumi (1995)

Ben Croshaw photo
Confucius photo
Phil Brooks photo

“I've come out here tonight to challenge you… challenge you, the WWE Universe, into seeing things my way and to learn how to just say "no." See, because the people who cheer for Jeff Hardy are just slaves to the vices associated with his (with quote fingers) "living in the moment." I feel bad for you, I really do. You walk around almost blind and you wear your prescriptions proudly on your sleeves like they were badges of honor. What was it the doctor told you? 'Just take one… every four hours,' right? Aside from myself, there's not a person in this arena who hasn't abused prescription medication or taken a recreational drug. And I know, trust me, it's hard being straight-edge, it's hard to live a straight-edge lifestyle. It's extremely difficult to be me, but what concerns me now is that none of you realize how much more difficult it is to live the life… that you all live. I'm positive nobody in here takes into account the long-term consequences of alcohol on your liver. (Smattering of cheers from audience) See, and you cheer that. That's nothing to cheer. You drink because it's fun, right? (Audience cheers a little louder) Eventually, it's not gonna be fun anymore when it spirals out of control and its no longer… it's no longer fun. Sooner or later, you're just drinking to feel normal. And then there's the smokers. You know, I don't know what's more disgusting–is watching a smoker pollute his/her lungs with over 4,000 foreign chemicals, or having to listen to the smoker convince themselves that they can quit whenever they want to. It's… it's hard to quit, I know, it takes a very strong person to quit, but an even stronger person never would've started smoking in the first place. (Audience boos and chants "Hardy") I didn't want to come out here and be the bearer of bad news, but let's face facts: chances are pretty slim that any of you here will ever get the monkey off your back. You'll never be able to pry the cigarette from your lips, or find the self-control to pour your drink from your glass, or the self-respect to take the pill out of your mouth. See, it starts, and it can't happen without learning how to say "no" to temptation, and that's why I'm out here. I'm out here to challenge you before it's too late. Please, learn how to say "no" to temptation, learn how to say "no" to your vices, learn how to control yourself.”

Phil Brooks (1978) American professional wrestler and mixed martial artist

July 24, 2009
Friday Night SmackDown

Nicholas Sparks photo
Rani Mukerji photo
William Paley photo

“The infidelity of the Gentile world, and that more especially of men of rank and learning in it, is resolved into a principle which, in my judgment, will account for the inefficacy of any argument, or any evidence whatever, viz.”

William Paley (1743–1805) Christian apologist, natural theologian, utilitarian

contempt prior to examination.
A View of the Evidences of Christianity (1794).
As quoted or paraphrased in Anglo-Israel or, The British Nation: The Lost Tribes of Israel (1879) by Rev. William H. Poole.
A similar statement apparently derived from this version has become widely attributed to Herbert Spencer, but there are no records of Spencer ever saying or writing it, the first known attributions to him occurring in 1922 as the epigraph to Le Roy Campbell's The True Function of Relaxation in Piano Playing: A Treatise on the Psycho-Physical Aspect of Piano Playing, With Exercises for Acquiring Relaxation: https://books.google.com/books?id=gjMuAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false "There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance! That principle is condemnation before investigation".
Variant: There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all argument, and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance. This principle is, contempt prior to examination.

“It was a simple story, really. Yes, God had told us to get a ship, and repeatedly He had confirmed His guidance using all the ways we had learned for hearing His voice. He used the Wise Men Principle; He used Scriptures which He seemed to lift off the pages for us; He used provision of money and people, and that inner conviction -- but we had failed in the way we had carried out His guidance. We had subtly turned from the Giver to the gift.”

Loren Cunningham (1935) American missionary

Cited in: "The God They Never Knew" (website) claimed from Loren Cunningham and Janice Rodgers, Is That Really You, God? Hearing the Voice of God, p. 107.
retrieved from http://web.archive.org/web/20011115090120/http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/1082/geotisjr.htm on 19:19, 2 May 2007, (UTC)

John Calvin photo

“The apostle denies that anyone actually knows Christ, who has not learned to put off the old man, corrupt with deceitful lusts, and to put on Christ.”

John Calvin (1509–1564) French Protestant reformer

Page 20.
Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life (1551)

Warren Farrell photo

“When men give lines, women learn to not trust men. When women wear makeup, men learn to not trust women. Male lines and female makeup are divorce training.”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. 71-72.

John F. Kennedy photo

“No man can fully grasp how far and how fast we have come, but condense, if you will, the 50 thousand years of man's recorded history in a time span of but a half-century. Stated in these terms, we know very little about the first 40 years, except at the end of them advanced man had learned to use the skins of animals to cover them. Then about 10 years ago, under this standard, man emerged from his caves to construct other kinds of shelter. Only five years ago man learned to write and use a cart with wheels. Christianity began less than two years ago. The printing press came this year, and then less than two months ago, during this whole 50-year span of human history, the steam engine provided a new source of power. Newton explored the meaning of gravity. Last month electric lights and telephones and automobiles and airplanes became available. Only last week did we develop penicillin and television and nuclear power, and now if America's new spacecraft succeeds in reaching Venus, we will have literally reached the stars before midnight tonight.
This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.
So it is not surprising that some would have us stay where we are a little longer to rest, to wait. But this city of Houston, this state of Texas, this country of the United States was not built by those who waited and rested and wished to look behind them. This country was conquered by those who moved forward — and so will space.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Source: 1962, Rice University speech

Adrienne von Speyr photo

“The first step in learning to love others is the attempt to understand them.”

Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) Swiss doctor and mystic

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 16

Carl R. Rogers photo

“It-owners know that setbacks can be setups for better things to come. They study their failures and learn from them.”

Craig Groeschel (1967) American priest

It – How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It (2008, Zondervan)

“By giving full attention to one thing at a time, we can learn to direct attention where we choose.”

Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) spiritual teacher, author of books on meditation and spiritual practice, and translator and interpreter of …

[Words to live by: A daily guide to leading an exceptional life, Easwaran, Eknath, w:Eknath Easwaran, 2005, Nilgiri, Tomales, CA, 978-1-58638-016-8] (page 12: comment for Jan. 3 on quote by Shelley) (work originally published 1990)

Gerald Ford photo

“All my children have spoken for themselves since they first learned to speak, and not always with my advance approval, and I expect that to continue in the future.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

As quoted in The New York Post (13 August 1974)
1970s

David Brin photo

“Learn to control ego. Humans hold their dogmas and biases too tightly, and we only think that our opponents are dogmatic! But we all need criticism. Criticism is the only known antidote to error.”

David Brin (1950) novelist, short story writer

"Interview de David Brin" at ActuSF.com (March 2008) http://www.actusf.com/spip/article-5739.html

Donald J. Trump photo

“Hillary Clinton's catastrophic immigration plan will bring vastly more radical Islamic immigration into this country, threatening not only our society but our entire way of life. When it comes to radical Islamic terrorism, ignorance is not bliss. It's deadly — totally deadly. … Clinton's State Department was in charge of admissions and the admissions process for people applying to enter from overseas. Having learned nothing from these attacks, she now plans to massively increase admissions without a screening plan including a 500 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country. Tell me, tell me – how stupid is that? This could be a better, bigger, more horrible version than the legendary Trojan Horse ever was. Altogether, under the Clinton plan, you'd be admitting hundreds of thousands of refugees from the Middle East with no system to vet them, or to prevent the radicalization of the children and their children. Not only their children, by the way, they're trying to take over our children and convince them how wonderful ISIS is and how wonderful Islam is and we don't know what's happening. The burden is on Hillary Clinton to tell us why she believes immigration from these dangerous countries should be increased without any effective system to really to screen. We're not screening people.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

2010s, 2016, June, Speech about the Orlando Shooting (June 13, 2016)

Margaret Mead photo
Augustus De Morgan photo
Gregory of Nyssa photo

“Just as, in the case of the sunlight, on one who has never from the day of his birth seen it, all efforts at translating it into words are quite thrown away; you cannot make the splendour of the ray shine through his ears; in like manner, to see the beauty of the true and intellectual light, each man has need of eyes of his own; and he who by a gift of Divine inspiration can see it retains his ecstasy unexpressed in the depths of his consciousness; while he who sees it not cannot be made to know even the greatness of his loss. How should he? This good escapes his perception, and it cannot be represented to him; it is unspeakable, and cannot be delineated. We have not learned the peculiar language expressive of this beauty. … What words could be invented to show the greatness of this loss to him who suffers it? Well does the great David seem to me to express the impossibility of doing this. He has been lifted by the power of the Spirit out of himself, and sees in a blessed state of ecstacy the boundless and incomprehensible Beauty; he sees it as fully as a mortal can see who has quitted his fleshly envelopments and entered, by the mere power of thought, upon the contemplation of the spiritual and intellectual world, and in his longing to speak a word worthy of the spectacle he bursts forth with that cry, which all re-echo, "Every man a liar!"”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

I take that to mean that any man who entrusts to language the task of presenting the ineffable Light is really and truly a liar; not because of any hatred on his part of the truth, but because of the feebleness of his instrument for expressing the thing thought of.
On Virginity, Chapter 10

John Zerzan photo
Walter Dill Scott photo
Sam Houston photo

“Texas has yet to learn submission to any oppression, come from what source it may.”

Sam Houston (1793–1863) nineteenth-century American statesman, politician, and soldier, namesake of Houston, Texas

As quoted in the Sam Houston Memorial Museum http://www.shsu.edu/~smm_www/History/quotes.shtml.

Oliver Goldsmith photo
Paul Allen photo

“In my experience, each failure contains the seeds of your next success—if you are willing to learn from it.”

Paul Allen (1953–2018) American inventor, investor and philanthropist

Idea Man (2012)

Jacques Lipchitz photo
Natalie Merchant photo

“let me
have a look inside these eyes while I'm learning
please don't hide them just because of tears”

Natalie Merchant (1963) American singer-songwriter

Song lyrics, Blind Man's Zoo (1989), Trouble Me

John Lancaster Spalding photo
Carole King photo
Robert P. George photo
Adlai Stevenson photo

“I have learned that In quiet places, reason abounds, that in quiet people there is vision and purpose, that many things are revealed to the humble that are hidden from the great.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

As quoted in My Brother Adlai (1956) by Elizabeth Stevenson Ives and Hildegarde Dolson

George Washington Plunkitt photo

“I want to add that no matter how well you learn to play the political game, you won’t make a lastin’ success of it if you're a drinkin’ man. p. 77”

George Washington Plunkitt (1842–1924) New York State Senator

Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Chapter 19, The Successful Politician Does Not Drink

Anu Partanen photo
Edwin Lefèvre photo
Isocrates photo