Quotes about learning (6821 quotes, page 65)

“The calm man, having learned how to govern himself, knows how to adapt himself to others; and they, in turn, reverence his spiritual strength, and feel that they can learn of him and rely upon him. The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.”

James Allen book As a Man Thinketh

As A Man Thinketh (1902), Serenity

Feeling , Success

“I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) English trader, writer and journalist

Source: Robinson Crusoe (1719), Ch. 9, A Boat.

God , People , Spring , Secret

“I learn with deep pain that his Excellency Mr. McKinley has succumbed to the deplorable attempt on his life. I sympathize with you with all my heart in this calamity which thus strikes at your dearest affections and which bereaves the great American nation of a President so justly respected and loved.”

William McKinley (1843–1901) American politician, 25th president of the United States (in office from 1897 to 1901)

President of France Émile Loubet telegraph to Mrs. McKinley. The Authentic Life of President McKinley, page 398.

Pain , Heart , Love , Life

“The four laws of learning are: the first is demonstration of what you want. The second is the criticism of the demonstration.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

The third is the imitation of the correct model, and the fourth is repetition, over and over until it becomes habit where is you don’t think about it.
Interview on Charlie Rose https://archive.org/details/WHUT_20100614_130000_Charlie_Rose (2000)

Law

“You remember that book called All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten?”

Mohamed ElBaradei (1942) Egyptian law scholar and diplomat, former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Nobel …

… Well that's very much true. I find a lot in common in the way I manage things and the way she manages three-year olds. We humans are the same when we are three years old and when we are 50!
Comparing his work as an international diplomat to that of his wife, Aida Elkachef, a kindergarten teacher, with a mention of the book by Robert Fulghum.
Breaking the Cycle (2003)

Books

“Abstract cleverness of the mind only separates the thinker from the world of reality, and that world, the Forest of Real Life, is in a desperate condition now because of too many who think too much and care too little. In spite of what many minds have thought themselves into believing, that mistake cannot continue for much longer if everything is going to survive. The one chance we have to avoid certain disaster is to change our approach, and learn to value wisdom and contentment. These are things that are being searched for anyway, through Knowledge and Cleverness, but they do not come from Knowledge and Cleverness. They never have, and they never will. We can no longer afford to look so desperately hard for something in the wrong way and in the wrong place. If Knowledge and Cleverness are allowed to go on wrecking things, they will before much longer destroy all life on this earth as we know it, and what little may temporarily survive will not be worth looking at, even if it were possible for us to do so.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

The Now of Pooh.
The Tao of Pooh (1982)

Chance , Search , Knowledge , Thinking

“Science seems to me to teach in the highest and strongest manner the great truth which is embodied in the Christian conception of entire surrender to the will of God. Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing. I have only begun to learn content and peace of mind since I have resolved at all risks to do this.”

Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) English biologist and comparative anatomist

1860s, Reply to Charles Kingsley (1860)

God , Peace , Nature , Truth

“His message is one of hope and peace, and he has inspired millions throughout the world. As an educator, the opportunity to learn has been central and the focus of my life. I have witnessed brilliant teachers and eager students turn classrooms into magical places. Prem Rawat reminds us that magic begins with people, and it’s within each person. That the possibility of peace and the possibility of living a life to the fullest begins with recognizing the value of life itself. That is, in my opinion, the deepest learning and is certainly a curriculum for everyone.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Dr. Eduardo Padron, President of w:Miami Dade College (June 16, 2005)
About, 2000s

Peace , Personality , People , Hope

“The Governor of the State of New Mexico, having learned of the outstanding achievement and exceptional accomplishments of Maharaji, does hereby extend congratulations and acknowledgement and further does herein direct that this official expression of pride be forthwith sent on behalf of the people of the State of New Mexico.”

Prem Rawat (1957) controversial spiritual leader

Bill Richardson, Governor of the State of New Mexico, United States of America, January 10, 2005
About, 2000s

People

“Walk tall, kick ass, learn to speak Arabic, love music and never forget you come from a long line of truth seekers, lovers and warriors.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

A note to his grandson, Will (2005) http://books.google.com/books?id=9Zy4GJrn--UC&pg=PA350&dq=%22truth+seekers,+lovers+and+warriors%22&hl=en&ei=AyvoTYrBIIq8sQOBg7XtDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22truth%20seekers%2C%20lovers%20and%20warriors%22&f=false, reprinted in "Outlaw Journalist : The Life and Times of Hunter S. Thompson" (2008), by William McKeen
2000s

Forgetting , Music , Truth , Lovers

“We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know?”

Richard Feynman book The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don't know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.
from lecture "What is and What Should be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society", given at the Galileo Symposium in Italy (1964)
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999)

Question , People , Search

“From that time that it was shewed I desired oftentimes to learn what was our Lord’s meaning. And fifteen years after, and more, I was answered in ghostly understanding, saying thus: Wouldst thou learn thy Lord’s meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end. Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord’s meaning.
The Sixteenth Revelation, Chapter 86

Time , Understanding , Love , Making love

“Gold, he learned, was considered to be a reliable store of value because extracting it from the ground required a certain amount of effort that tended to remain stable over time. When new, easy-to-mine gold deposits were found, or new mining technologies developed, the value of gold tended to fall. It didn’t take a huge amount of acumen, then, to understand that the value of virtual gold in the game world could be made stable in a directly analogous way: namely, by forcing players to expend a certain amount of time and effort to extract a certain amount of virtual gold…”

Neal Stephenson book Reamde

Economics of gold farming, Thanksgiving (prologue)
Reamde (2011), Part I: Nine Dragons

Time , Understanding , Game , Way

“Love always brings difficulties, that is true, but the good side of it is that it gives energy…. I have not yet had enough experience with women. What we were taught about them in our youth is quite wrong, that is sure, it was quite contrary to nature, and one must try to learn from experience. It would be very pleasant if everybody were good, and the world were good, etc.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

yes - but it seems to me that we see more and more that we are not good, no more than the world in general, of which we are an atom - and the world no more good than we are. One may try one's best, or act carelessly, the result is always different from what one really wanted. But whether the result be better or worse, fortunate or unfortunate, it is better to do something than to do nothing. If only one is wary of becoming a prim, self-righteous prig - as Uncle Vincent calls it - one may be even as good as one likes.
In his letter to Theo, from Nuenen, c. 9 March 1884, http://www.webexhibits.org/vangogh/letter/14/359.htm
1880s, 1884

Nature , Youth , World , Love

“Today is my thirtieth birthday and I sit on the ocean wave in the schoolyard and wait for Kate and think of nothing. Now in the thirty-first year of my dark pilgrimage on this earth and knowing less than I ever knew before, having learned only to recognize merde when I see it, having inherited no more from my father than a good nose for merde, for every species of shit that flies - my only talent - smelling merde from every quarter, living in fact in the very century of merde, the great shithouse of scientific humanism where needs are satisfied, everyone becomes an anyone, a warm and creative person, and prospers like a dung beetle, and one hundred percent of people are humanists and ninety-eight percent believe in God, and men are dead, dead, dead; and the malaise has settled like a fall-out and what people really fear is not that the bomb will fall but that the bomb will not fall - on this my thirtieth birthday, I know nothing and there is nothing to do but fall prey to desire.”

Walker Percy book The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer (1961)

God , Fear , Waiting , Dead

“In those days I had seen little further than the old school of political economists into the possibilities of fundamental improvement in social arrangements. Private property, as now understood, and inheritance, appeared to me, as to them, the dernier mot of legislation: and I looked no further than to mitigating the inequalities consequent on these institutions, by getting rid of primogeniture and entails. The notion that it was possible to go further than this in removing the injustice -- for injustice it is, whether admitting of a complete remedy or not -- involved in the fact that some are born to riches and the vast majority to poverty, I then reckoned chimerical, and only hoped that by universal education, leading to voluntary restraint on population, the portion of the poor might be made more tolerable. In short, I was a democrat, but not the least of a Socialist. We were now much less democrats than I had been, because so long as education continues to be so wretchedly imperfect, we dreaded the ignorance and especially the selfishness and brutality of the mass: but our ideal of ultimate improvement went far beyond Democracy, and would class us decidedly under the general designation of Socialists. While we repudiated with the greatest energy that tyranny of society over the individual which most Socialistic systems are supposed to involve, we yet looked forward to a time when society will no longer be divided into the idle and the industrious; when the rule that they who do not work shall not eat, will be applied not to paupers only, but impartially to all; when the division of the produce of labour, instead of depending, as in so great a degree it now does, on the accident of birth, will be made by concert on an acknowledged principle of justice; and when it will no longer either be, or be thought to be, impossible for human beings to exert themselves strenuously in procuring benefits which are not to be exclusively their own, but to be shared with the society they belong to. The social problem of the future we considered to be, how to unite the greatest individual liberty of action, with a common ownership in the raw material of the globe, and an equal participation of all in the benefits of combined labour. We had not the presumption to suppose that we could already foresee, by what precise form of institutions these objects could most effectually be attained, or at how near or how distant a period they would become practicable. We saw clearly that to render any such social transformation either possible or desirable, an equivalent change of character must take place both in the uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses, and in the immense majority of their employers. Both these classes must learn by practice to labour and combine for generous, or at all events for public and social purposes, and not, as hitherto, solely for narrowly interested ones. But the capacity to do this has always existed in mankind, and is not, nor is ever likely to be, extinct. Education, habit, and the cultivation of the sentiments, will make a common man dig or weave for his country, as readily as fight for his country. True enough, it is only by slow degrees, and a system of culture prolonged through successive generations, that men in general can be brought up to this point. But the hindrance is not in the essential constitution of human nature. Interest in the common good is at present so weak a motive in the generality not because it can never be otherwise, but because the mind is not accustomed to dwell on it as it dwells from morning till night on things which tend only to personal advantage. When called into activity, as only self-interest now is, by the daily course of life, and spurred from behind by the love of distinction and the fear of shame, it is capable of producing, even in common men, the most strenuous exertions as well as the most heroic sacrifices. The deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society, is so deeply rooted, only because the whole course of existing institutions tends to foster it; modern institutions in some respects more than ancient, since the occasions on which the individual is called on to do anything for the public without receiving its pay, are far less frequent in modern life, than the smaller commonwealths of antiquity.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)
Source: https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/230/mode/1up pp. 230-233

Fight , Love , Fear , Problem

“China isn’t the only authoritarian regime in the world, but it’s undoubtedly the wealthiest, strongest and most developed in machine learning and artificial intelligence. This makes Xi Jinping the most dangerous opponent of those who believe in the concept of open society.”

George Soros (1930) Hungarian-American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

On China (2019)

World , Intelligence , Making love

“There are some things that no amount of pure intelligence can anticipate, but which can only be learned by bitter experience.”

Arthur C. Clarke book The Road to the Sea

The Road to the Sea, p. 284
2000s and posthumous publications, The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke (2001)

Intelligence

“Can we trust transnational internet groups like Wikipedia, which are self-regulating and unaccountable, to determine or censor information for the public, to decide what are the facts in nearly all fields of life and learning?”

David Frawley (1950) American Hindu teacher

David Frawley on Twitter on 10 Apr 2019 https://twitter.com/davidfrawleyved/status/1115966831246725122

Self-confidence , Life

“The strength of the doctrine of reincarnation lies in itself, in its appeal to our intellectual and logical faculties, in its own persuasiveness, in the manner in which it answers problems, in the hope that it gives, in the light that it sheds upon collateral questions of human life, and indirectly upon the problems of the physical world surrounding us. It is through and by reincarnation as a natural fact, that we learn the beauty of the inner life and thereby grow, developing a larger comprehension, not only of ourselves, but of the loveliness inherent in the harmony of the universal laws. For there is back of all things beauty, and bliss, and truth.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

Source: Man in Evolution (1941), Chapter 10

Law , Question , Light , Beauty

“It is a general observation that people write as they read. As a rule, careful writers are careful readers and vice versa. A careful writer wants to be read carefully. He cannot know what it means to be read carefully but by having done careful reading himself. Reading precedes writing. We read before we write. We learn to write by reading. A man learns to write well by reading well good books, by reading most carefully books which are most carefully written.”

Leo Strauss book Persecution and the Art of Writing

Source: Persecution and the Art of Writing (1952), How to Study Spinoza's Theologico-Political Treatise, p. 144

Books , People , Reading

“Zealousness to learn from life is seldom found, but all the more frequently a desire, inclination, and reciprocal haste to be deceived by life. Undaunted, people do not seem to have a Socratic fear of being deceived, for the voice of God is always a whisper, while the demand of the age is a thousand-tongued rumor, not an all-powerful call that creates great men but a stirring in the offal that creates confused pates, an abracadabra that produces after its kind as is the case with all production. Even less do people seem to have above all a Socratic fear of being deceived by themselves, do not seem to be the least aware that if the self-deceived are the most miserable of all, then among these, again, the most miserable are those who are presumptuously deceived by themselves in contrast to those who are piously deceived.”

Sören Kierkegaard (1813–1855) Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review. By Soren Kierkegaard, 1846 edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1978 Princeton University Press P. 10
1840s, Two Ages: A Literary Review (1846)

Life , God , People , Self-confidence

“Emotions are continually affecting our thought processes and decisions, below the level of our awareness. And the most common emotion of them all is the desire for pleasure and the avoidance of pain. Our thoughts almost inevitably revolve around this desire; we simply recoil from entertaining ideas that are unpleasant or painful to us. We imagine we are looking for the truth, or being realistic, when in fact we are holding on to ideas that bring a release from tension and soothe our egos, make us feel superior. This pleasure principle in thinking is the source of all of our mental biases. If you believe that you are somehow immune to any of the following biases, it is simply an example of the pleasure principle in action. Instead, it is best to search and see how they continually operate inside you, as well as learn how to identify such irrationality in others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 1 : Master Your Emotional Self
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Pain , Imagination , Search , Pleasure

“We all naturally possess the most remarkable tool for connecting to people and attaining social power—empathy. When cultivated and properly used, it can allow us to see into the moods and minds of others, giving us the power to anticipate people’s actions and gently lower their resistance. This instrument, however, is blunted by our habitual self-absorption. We are all narcissists, some deeper on the spectrum than others. Our mission in life is to come to terms with this self-love and learn how to turn our sensitivity outward, toward others, instead of inward. We must recognize at the same time the toxic narcissists among us before getting enmeshed in their dramas and poisoned by their envy.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 2 : Transform Self-love into Empathy
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Time , Envy , People , Nature

“People tend to wear the mask that shows them off in the best possible light—humble, confident, diligent. They say the right things, smile, and seem interested in our ideas. They learn to conceal their insecurities and envy. If we take this appearance for reality, we never really know their true feelings, and on occasion we are blindsided by their sudden resistance, hostility, and manipulative actions. Fortunately, the mask has cracks in it. People continually leak out their true feelings and unconscious desires in the nonverbal cues they cannot completely control—facial expressions, vocal inflections, tension in the body, and nervous gestures. You must master this language by transforming yourself into a superior reader of men and women. Armed with this knowledge, you can take the proper defensive measures. On the other hand, since appearances are what people judge you by, you must learn how to present the best front and play your role to maximum effect.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 3 : See Through People’s Masks
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Confidence , Hostility , Light , Smile

“When choosing people to work and associate with, do not be mesmerized by their reputation or taken in by the surface image they try to project. Instead, train yourself to look deep within them and see their character. People’s character is formed in their earliest years and by their daily habits. It is what compels them to repeat certain actions in their lives and fall into negative patterns. Look closely at such patterns and remember that people never do something just once. They will inevitably repeat their behavior. Gauge the relative strength of their character by how well they handle adversity, their ability to adapt and work with other people, their patience and ability to learn. Always gravitate toward those who display signs of strength, and avoid the many toxic types out there. Know thoroughly your own character so you can break your compulsive patterns and take control of your destiny.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

People , Gauge , Training , Patience

“The most significant indicator of people’s character comes through their actions over time. Despite what people say about the lessons they have learned (see Howard Hughes), and how they have changed over the years, you will inevitably notice the same actions and decisions repeating in the course of their life. In these decisions they reveal their character. You must take notice of any salient forms of behavior—disappearing when there is too much stress, not completing an important piece of work, turning suddenly belligerent when challenged, or, conversely, suddenly rising to the occasion when given responsibility. With this fixed in your mind, you do some research into their past. You look at other actions you have observed that fit into this pattern, now in retrospect. You pay close attention to what they do in the present. You see their actions not as isolated incidents but as parts of a compulsive pattern. If you ignore the pattern it is your own fault.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 4 : Determine the Strength of People’s Character
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Behavior , Time , Past , People

“Absence and presence have very primal effects upon us. Too much presence suffocates; a degree of absence spurs our interest. We are marked by the continual desire to possess what we do not have—the object projected by our fantasies. Learn to create some mystery around you, to use strategic absence to make people desire your return, to want to possess you. Dangle in front of others what they are missing most in life, what they are forbidden to have, and they will go crazy with desire. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Overcome this weakness in yourself by embracing your circumstances, your fate.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 5 : Become an Elusive Object of Desire
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Fate , Grass , People , Life

“It is in the animal part of your nature to be most impressed by what you can see and hear in the present—the latest news reports and trends, the opinions and actions of the people around you, whatever seems the most dramatic. This is what makes you fall for alluring schemes that promise quick results and easy money. This is also what makes you overreact to present circumstances—becoming overly exhilarated or panicky as events turn one direction or the other. Learn to measure people by the narrowness or breadth of their vision; avoid entangling yourself with those who cannot see the consequences of their actions, who are in a continual reactive mode. They will infect you with this energy. Your eyes must be on the larger trends that govern events, on that which is not immediately visible. Never lose sight of your long-term goals. With an elevated perspective, you will have the patience and clarity to reach almost any objective.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 6 : Elevate Your Perspective
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Money , People , Nature , Animals

“Life is harsh and people competitive. We naturally must look after our own interests. We also want to feel that we are independent, doing our own bidding. That is why when others try to persuade or change us, we become defensive and resistant. To give in challenges our need to feel autonomous. That is why to get people to move from their defensive positions you must always make it seem like what they are doing is of their own free will. Creating a feeling of mutual warmth helps soften people’s resistance and makes them want to help. Never attack people for their beliefs or make them feel insecure about their intelligence or goodness—that will only strengthen their defensiveness and make your task impossible. Make them feel that by doing what you want they are being noble and altruistic—the ultimate lure. Learn to tame your own stubborn nature and free your mind from its defensive and closed positions, unleashing your creative powers.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 7 : Soften People’s Resistance by Confirming Their Self-opinion
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Intelligence , Help , People , Nature

“People are rarely who they seem to be. Lurking beneath their polite, affable exterior is inevitably a dark, shadow side consisting of the insecurities and the aggressive, selfish impulses they repress and carefully conceal from public view. This dark side leaks out in behavior that will baffle and harm you. Learn to recognize the signs of the Shadow before they become toxic. See people’s overt traits—toughness, saintliness, et cetera—as covering up the opposite quality. You must become aware of your own dark side. In being conscious of it you can control and channel the creative energies that lurk in your unconscious. By integrating the dark side into your personality, you will be a more complete human and will radiate an authenticity that will draw people to you.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Selfishness , Drawing , Personality , People

“Your task as a student of human nature is to recognize and examine the dark side of your character. Once subjected to conscious scrutiny, it loses its destructive power. If you can learn to detect the signs of it in yourself (see the following sections for help on this), you can channel this darker energy into productive activity. You can turn your neediness and vulnerability into empathy. You can channel your aggressive impulses into worthwhile causes and into your work. You can admit your ambitions, your desires for power, and not act so guiltily and stealthily. You can monitor your suspicious tendencies and the projection of your own negative emotions onto others. You can see that selfish and harmful impulses dwell within you as well, that you are not as angelic or strong as you imagine. With this awareness will come balance and greater tolerance for others.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 9 : Confront Your Dark Side
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Selfishness , Imagination , Strong , Help

“We humans are naturally compelled to compare ourselves with one another. We are continually measuring people’s status, the levels of respect and attention they receive, and noticing any differences between what we have and what they have. For some of us, this need to compare serves as a spur to excel through our work. For others, it can turn into deep envy—feelings of inferiority and frustration that lead to covert attacks and sabotage. Nobody admits to acting out of envy. You must recognize the early warning signs—praise and bids for friendship that seem effusive and out of proportion; subtle digs at you under the guise of good-natured humor; apparent uneasiness with your success. It is most likely to crop up among friends or your peers in the same profession. Learn to deflect envy by drawing attention away from yourself. Develop your sense of self-worth from internal standards and not incessant comparisons.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 10 : Beware the Fragile Ego
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Drawing , Friendship , Success , People

“On the surface, the people around you appear so polite and civilized. But beneath the mask, they are all inevitably dealing with frustrations. They have a need to influence people and gain power over circumstances. Feeling blocked in their endeavors, they often try to assert themselves in manipulative ways that catch you by surprise. And then there are those whose need for power and impatience to obtain it are greater than others. They turn particularly aggressive, getting their way by intimidating people, being relentless and willing to do almost anything. You must transform yourself into a superior observer of people’s unsatisfied aggressive desires, paying extra attention to the chronic aggressors and passive aggressors in our midst. You must recognize the signs—the past patterns of behavior, the obsessive need to control everything in their environment—that indicate the dangerous types. They depend on making you emotional—afraid, angry—and unable to think straight. Do not give them this power. When it comes to your own aggressive energy, learn to tame and channel it for productive purposes—standing up for yourself, attacking problems with relentless energy, realizing great ambitions.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 16 : See the Hostility Behind the Friendly Façade
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Dependency , Past , People , Problem

“Spirituality is not about knowing everything. It's about learning to LOVE everything.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Love , Making love

“Because we have learned that our parents and other people cannot accept our emotions, thoughts and desires and we cannot tolerate them in that situation, we learn to disconnect from our personal truth as well. This includes disconnecting from our feelings so we don't feel them. This includes disconnecting from our thoughts so we aren't thinking them. It means disconnecting from our bodies so we don't feel our bodies and it involves disconnecting from our personal desires.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

Personality , People , Truth , Thinking

“You cannot move beyond your current emotions unless you allow them to surface and be released. This means that you must learn to express your emotions.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“Youth is learning to read (which is all that one learns in school), and is learning where and how to find what he may later need to know (which is the best of the arts that he acquires in college). Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire. It is Life that educates, and perhaps love more than anything else in life.”

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

Fallen Leaves (2014)

School , Behavior , Reading , Art

“Learning how to tell people to f**k off is one of the best things you can learn to do for your business.”

Ashley Ambirge

Business , People

“My door was never locked,
Until one day a trigger come cocking.
(But now I've started learning how,)
I keep it shut.”

Kate Bush (1958) British recording artist; singer, songwriter, musician and record producer

Song lyrics, The Dreaming (1982)

“my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
Does this sound dismal? It isn't.
It's the most wonderful life on earth.
Or so I feel.
E. E. Cummings
A Poet's Advice (1958)

World , People

“The legal system can force open doors, and sometimes-even knock down walls, but it cannot build bridges. That job belongs to you and me. The country can't do it. Afro and White, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, our fates are bound together. We can run from each other, but we cannot escape each other. We will only attain freedom if we learn to appreciate what is different, and muster the courage to discover what is fundamentally the same. America's diversity offers so much richness and opportunity. Take a chance, won't you? Knock down the fences, which divide. Tear apart the walls that imprison you. Reach out. Freedom lies just on the other side. We shall have liberty for all.”

Thurgood Marshall (1908–1993) Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court

Speech delivered on September 6, 1990, before the Annual Judicial Conference of the Second Circuit, quoted in Supreme Justice Speeches and Writings Thurgood Marshall. Edited by J. Clay Smith, Jr. (2002).

Courage , Chance , Fate , Freedom

“Just as Hegel is said to have understood his philosophy for the first time when he read its French translation, Vilfredo Pareto could have learned what it was he meant exactly to say when he read Bergson's 1938 classic.”

Paul A. Samuelson (1915–2009) American economist

Introduction to the Enlarged Edition
1940s, Foundations of Economic Analysis (1947; 1983)

Reading , Time

“I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

address " What is Science? http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html", presented at the fifteenth annual meeting of the National Science Teachers Association, in New York City (1966), published in The Physics Teacher, volume 7, issue 6 (1969), p. 313-320

Understanding , People , Communication , Way

“What lies behind the complaint about the dearth of civil courage? In recent years we have seen a great deal of bravery and self-sacrifice, but civil courage hardly anywhere, even among ourselves. To attribute this simply to personal cowardice would be too facile a psychology; its background is quite different. In a long history, we Germans have had to learn the need for and the strength of obedience. In the subordination of all personal wishes and ideas to the tasks to which we have been called, we have seen the meaning and greatness of our lives. We have looked upwards, not in servile fear, but in free trust, seeing in our tasks a call, and in our call a vocation. This readiness to follow a command from "above" rather than our own private opinions and wishes was a sign of legitimate self-distrust. Who would deny that in obedience, in their task and calling, the Germans have again and again shown the utmost bravery and self-sacrifice? But the German has kept his freedom — and what nation has talked more passionately of freedom than the Germans, from Luther to the idealist philosophers?”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906–1945) German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi

by seeking deliverance from self-will through service to the community. Calling and freedom were to him two sides of the same thing. But in this he misjudged the world; he did not realize that his submissiveness and self-sacrifice could be exploited for evil ends. When that happened, the exercise of the calling itself became questionable, and all the moral principles of the German were bound to totter. The fact could not be escaped that the Germans still lacked something fundamental: he could not see the need for free and responsible action, even in opposition to the task and his calling; in its place there appeared on the one hand an irresponsible lack of scruple, and on the other a self-tormenting punctiliousness that never led to action. Civil courage, in fact, can grow only out of the free responsibility of free men. Only now are the Germans beginning to discover the meaning of free responsibility. It depends on a God who demands responsible action in a bold venture of faith, and who promises forgiveness and consolation to the man who becomes a sinner in that venture.
Source: Letters and Papers from Prison (1967; 1997), Civil Courage, p. 5

Courage , History , Freedom , Personality

“Like the roaches and the rats, ants had learned to live with their human neighbors without much trouble. When the concrete of human cities spread across the globe and half the animals on Earth were on endangered lists, no one had worried about the ants. They were doing fine, thanks, and spilled fast food was just as plentiful and delicious as dead forest animals had once been.
Adapt or die.”

Daniel Abraham (1969) speculative fiction writer from the United States

Source: Nemesis Games (2015), Chapter 4 (p. 42)

Animals , Dead , Food

“[ Organizational culture is] a pattern of shared basic assumptions that the group learned as it solved its problems of external adaptation and internal integration, that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relation to those problems.”

Edgar H. Schein (1928) Psychologist

Source: Organizational Culture and Leadership, 1985, p. 12

Problem , Thinking , Relation ships , Way

“I’m fascinated with the process of creating a character and the freedom of the creative process. I’m discovering as well, learning myself. Since I only realized I had the gift ten years ago, I felt I needed to develop this. I also like fiction because it is not doctrinaire. It is exploratory and you are invited to come and see, just like Jesus first invited would-be disciples to ‘come and see’. What you do after seeing is left to you.”

Uwem Akpan (1971) Nigerian Jesuit priest and writer

On choosing fiction to communicate about heavy topics in “UWEM AKPAN | INTERVIEW” https://granta.com/interview-uwem-akpan/ in Granta (2008 Nov 14)

Freedom

“A far more important lesson to learn from artists is not that they fail, but that they prevail. Artists make. Artists do.”

Will Gompertz (1965) British journalist

Think Like an Artist (2015)

Making love

“The writer, when first he became a theosophical student, had the aid of an advanced occultist in his studies. This friend sent him, among others, the letters which, in the hope that they may assist others as they have the original recipient, are here published. They are not exhaustive treatises; they are hints given by one who knew that the first need of a student is to learn how to think.”

William Quan Judge (1851–1896) American occult writer

Preface to Volume 1
Letters That Have Helped Me (1891)

Thinking , Study , Hope

“Many instructional arrangements seem "contrived", but there is nothing wrong with that. It is the teacher's function to contrive conditions under which students learn. Their relevance to a future usefulness need not be obvious.
It is a difficult assignment. The conditions the teacher arranges must be powerful enough to compete with those under which the student tends to behave in distracting ways.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

"Free and Happy Student" in The Phi Delta Kappan (September 1973); later published in Reflections on Behaviorism and Society (1978)

Way , Future , Teachers

“Many of the novels read in isolation can seem like lumber-rooms of ideas, cluttered and over-complex, as if attempting too much at once. Perhaps the fault lies in market circumstances and the terse Ace format for which Dick wrote. One could also argue that Dick's novels were a quarter the length they ought to have been to contain such complexity and richness. Even so, the marvellous, multi— levelled web of themes and concerns which emerges from this process of condensation gives Dick's work its specific feel, the very thing that makes it unique. Unrevised, eccentric and extravagant — even so, it's not too much to claim that Dick is perhaps the first real genius to have worked in the science-fictional mode since the days of Stapledon, a hybrid of Dickens and Dostoevsky, possessed of the comic delights and tragic depths of both, yet choosing work where his eccentricities were cherished. In any case, like so many SF writers, he learned to love the genre through the magazines long before his literary tastes were formed. He never quite recovered from that first infatuation with the forbidden van Vogtian delights.”

Philip K. Dick (1928–1982) American author

Брайан Олдисс, «Кутёж на триллион лет»

Science , Reading , Idea , Love

“The theory of the nature of mathematics is extremely reactionary. We do not subscribe to the fairly recent notion that mathematics is an abstract language based, say, on set theory. In many ways, it is unfortunate that philosophers and mathematicians like Russell and Hilbert were able to tell such a convincing story about the meaning-free formalism of mathematics. In Greek, mathematics simply meant learning, and we have adapted this... to define the term as "learing to decide."”

C. West Churchman (1913–2004) American philosopher and systems scientist

Mathematics is a way of preparing for decisions through thinking. Sets and classes provide one way to subdivide a problem for decision preparation; a set derives its meaning from decision making, and not vice versa.

C. West Churchman, Leonard Auerbach, Simcha Sadan, Thinking for Decisions: Deductive Quantitative Methods (1975) Preface.
1960s - 1970s

Way , Mathematics , Nature

“When I interned for the American Hero, the Honorable John Lewis, I learned that this will be a tough fight, yet we must be determined to stand against injustice. Civil Rights are Human Rights and human rights are Environmental Rights… NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT.”

Jerome Foster II (2002)

at LCV Annual Gala https://www.lcv.org/article_category/blog/Speech

Fight , Time

“American politicians over the past 25 years have learned to quietly dismiss big rallies, demonstrations, and even temporary occupations, because they have gone nowhere.”

Ralph Nader (1934) American consumer rights activist and corporate critic

A quote from the book
"How The Rats Reformed The Congress" (2018)

Past

“Search not to find how other men offend,
But by that glass thy own offences mend;
Still seek to learn, yet care not much from whom,
(So it be learning) or from whence it come.
Of thy own actions, others' judgments learn;
Often by small, great matters we discern:
Youth what man's age is like to be doth show;
We may our ends by our beginnings know.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 225

Search , Youth , Age , Men

“Wisdom of what herself approves makes choice,
Nor is led captive by the common voice.
Clear-sighted Reason Wisdom's judgment leads,
And Sense, her vassal, in her footsteps treads.
That thou to Truth the perfect way may'st know,
To thee all her specific forms I'll show:
He that the way to honesty will learn,
First what's to be avoided must discern.
Thyself from flatt'ring self-conceit defend,
Nor what thou dost not know to know pretend.
Some secrets deep in abstruse darkness lie:
To search them thou wilt need a piercing eye.
Not rashly therefore to such things assent,
Which, undeceived, thou after may'st repent;
Study and time in these must thee instruct,
And others' old experience may conduct.
Wisdom herself her ear doth often lend
To counsel offer'd by a faithful friend.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

Source: Of Prudence (1668), line 11

Faith , Study , Time , Search

“History teaches us that civilizations flourish, die and disappear. Sometimes they died swiftly, sometimes in a slow lingering death. And sometimes, as with Rome and others, echoes of that civilization find new life ain later cultures. To lose the conscious memory of an entire civilization is especially tragic and dangerous, because each civilization, no matter how grand or flawed, is a laboratory of human ideas and ideals, of dreams and nightmares. We can learn from all of them.”

Michael Hamilton Morgan (1951) American writer

Lost History, p. 1

History , Dreams , Memory , Idea

“O people, you were not created in vain, nor will you be left to yourselves. Rather, you will return to a place in which Allah will descend in order to judge among you and distinguish between you. Destitute and lost are those who forsake the all-encompassing Mercy of Allah, and they will be excluded from Paradise, the borders of which are as wide as the heavens and the Earth. Don't you know that protection, tomorrow, will be limited to those who feared Allah [today], and to those who sold something ephemeral for something permanent, something small for something great, and fear for protection? Don't you realize that you are the descendants of those who have perished, that those who remain will take place after you, and that this will continue until you are all returned to Allah? Every day you dispatch to Allah, at all times of the day, someone who has ded, his term having come to an end. You bury him in a crack in the earth and then leave him without a pillow or a bed. He has parted from his loved ones, severed his connections with the living, and taken up residence in the earth, whereupon he comes face to face with the accounting. He is mortgaged to his deeds: He needs his accomplishments, but not the material things he left on earth. Therefore, fear Allah before death descends and its appointed times expire. I swear by Allah that I say those words to you knowing that I myself have committed more sins than any of you; I therefore ask Allah for forgiveness and I repent. Whenever we learn that one of you needs something, I try to satisfy his need to the extent that I am able. Whenever I can provide satisfaction to one of you out of you of my possessions, I seek to treat him as my equal and m relative, so that my life and his life are of equal value. I swear by Allah that had I wanted something else, namely, affluence, then it would have been easy for me to utter the word, aware as I am of the means for obtaining this. But Allah has issued in an eloquent Book (Quran) and a just example Sunnah by means of which He guides us to obedience and proscribes disobedience.”

Umar II (681–720) Umayyad caliph

History of the Prophets and Kings, Vol. 24, p. 98/99, also quoted in Umar Bin Abd Al-Aziz, p. 708-710
Last Sermon delivered to People

Forgiveness , Life , Time , Death

“If the streambed of education is being enlarged, one formidable force altering its contours is competition. Learning is where you find it: on "Sesame Street," in inner games of tennis and the Zen of everything, in teaching and learning cooperatives, in computers, on FM radio, in self-help books, in magazines... and television documentaries.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Game , Help , Self-confidence , Books

“We begin to see the unease and disease of our adult lives as elaborate patterns that emerged from a system that taught us young how to be still, look backward, look to authority, construct certainties. The fear of learning—and transformation—is the inevitable product of such a system.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn

Fear , Disease

“If our memories are as absorbent as research has demonstrated, our awareness as wide, our brains and bodies as sensitive; if we can will changes in our physiology at the level of a single cell; if we are heirs to such evolutionary virtuosity—how can we be performing and learning at such mediocre levels? If we're so rich, why aren't we smart?”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn, p. 279

Memory , Change

“That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur, other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompence. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue. And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods,
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense,
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.”

William Wordsworth book Lyrical Ballads

Stanza 3
Lyrical Ballads (1798–1800), Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey (1798)

Loss , Soul , Time , Sun

“We can begin anywhere—everywhere. "Let there be peace," says a bumper sticker, "and let it begin with me." Let there be health, learning, relationship, right uses of power, meaningful work.... Let there be transformation, and let it begin with me.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Thirteen, The Whole- Earth Conspiracy

Peace , Health

“If we are not learning and teaching we are not awake and alive. Learning is not only like health, it is health.”

Marilyn Ferguson (1938–2008) American writer

Source: The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Nine, Flying and Seeing: New Ways to Learn, p. 282

Health

“COVID-19 is taking so much from us. But it’s also giving us something special – the opportunity to come together as one humanity – to work together, to learn together, to grow together.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---20-march-2020, World Health Organization.

“Activists have been encouraged by his ability to listen, learn and change...”

Norman Solomon (1951) American journalist, media critic, antiwar activist

Bernie’s Likely 2020 Bid Could Transform the Political Landscape (29 Jan 2019)

Change

“Every day, we are learning more about this virus and the disease it causes. One of the things we are learning is that although older people are the hardest hit, younger people are not spared. Data from many countries clearly show that people under 50 make up a significant proportion of patients requiring hospitalization. Today, I have a message for young people: you are not invincible. This virus could put you in hospital for weeks, or even kill you. Even if you don’t get sick, the choices you make about where you go could be the difference between life and death for someone else. I’m grateful that so many young people are spreading the word and not the virus. As I keep saying, solidarity is the key to defeating COVID-19 - solidarity between countries, but also between age groups. Thank you for heeding our call for solidarity, solidarity, solidarity.”

Tedros Adhanom (1965) Director-General of the World Health Organization, former Minister in Ethiopia

WHO Director-General's opening remarks at the media briefing on COVID-19 - 20 March 2020 https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-opening-remarks-at-the-media-briefing-on-covid-19---20-march-2020, World Health Organization.

Making love , Country , People , Age

“I learned to love my country, in two ways. I began to learn the geography of the South-the mountains, the rivers, the valleys. The other thing was the incredible heroism on both sides. It's hard to believe men were as brave as those men were. Somehow sense of honor was stronger than fear. God knows, they felt fear. I would really like it to be stressed that my work helped me to love my country. I hope my work does that for other people, learning both our virtues and our vices.”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

Interview for the Lexington Herald-Leader, 1997

God , Country , Mountain , Help

“Right now I'm thinking a good deal about emancipation. One of our sins was slavery. Another was emancipation. It's a paradox. In theory, emancipation was one of the glories of our democracy-and it was. But the way it was done led to tragedy. Turning four million people loose with no jobs or trades or learning. And then, in 1877, for a few electoral votes, just abandoning them entirely. A huge amount of pain and trouble resulted. Everybody in America is still paying for it.”

Shelby Foote (1916–2005) Novelist, historian

Smithsonian Magazine, August 1996

Democracy , Pain , People , Thinking

“[W]hen you get to Rome you have two other rules to learn: never assume that what you see is what is; never believe that what you're told is the whole truth. It's only when you've grasped that — and the Romans know you've grasped it — that you begin to win respect and make progress.”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Cardinal Francis Spellman in Book 1. London: Mandarin, 1993, p. 67
The Lovers (1993)

Truth , Making love

“I believe you have to start with a craft; you don’t just start with a dream. You’ve got to put a lot of work in. If you want to pursue acting, then you go to acting class. If you want to be a dancer, then you learn to dance, which is what I did. If you want to be a ventriloquist or join the circus … When you’re young, you start looking at what you want to do—not just who you want to be, but what you want to do. And I think the tenacity to say, “I’m going to perfect that,” is the beginning of a work ethic...”

Goldie Hawn (1945) American actress, film director, and producer.

On how success is earned in “GOLDIE HAWN” https://www.interviewmagazine.com/film/goldie-hawn in Interview Magazine (2017 Apr 25)

Dreams , Perfection , Thinking , Dance

“Perhaps the concept of shame applies to only women but not men. Maybe because she was a ‘prostitute’ she was able to write crude depictions of sex without shame. In that case, it surely must not suit the supposed learned men to depict conjugal pleasures in the same way?”

Bangalore Nagarathnamma (1878–1952) Indian singer

as a sarcastic retort to criticism of the original work and her 1910 edition containing sexual/erotic passages, believed to being unsuitable for women

Firstpost Article - An early 20th century tale of censorship - 22 Mar 2020 https://www.firstpost.com/living/an-early-20th-century-tale-of-censorship-how-bangalore-nagarathnamma-fought-social-norms-to-revive-the-legacy-of-muddupalani-8132331.html Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20200415202057/https://www.firstpost.com/living/an-early-20th-century-tale-of-censorship-how-bangalore-nagarathnamma-fought-social-norms-to-revive-the-legacy-of-muddupalani-8132331.html

the wording of the quote is different in the sources provided(probably due to translation), but the tonality and meaning are similar.
About Radhika Santawanam (Appeasing Radhika)

Pleasure , Sex , Way , Women

“The relationship between a woman and a man is built on the basis of mutual respect .. The woman is not required to bury herself in life because the man is unable to control his instincts like animals .. The woman raises the man's face, hair, height, width, smell, and even the voice of her is roughened, but the woman has learned to control her instincts. The man is also required to rise to the level of the woman.”

Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000) Tunisian politician

Animals , Life

“A worker-coop based economy—where workers democratically run enterprises, deciding what, how and where to produce, and what to do with any profits—could, and likely would, put social needs and goals (like proper preparation for pandemics) ahead of profits. Workers are the majority in all capitalist societies; their interests are those of the majority. Employers are always a small minority; theirs are the "special interests" of that minority. Capitalism gives that minority the position, profits and power to determine how the society as a whole lives or dies. That's why all employees now wonder and worry about how long our jobs, incomes, homes and bank accounts will last—if we still have them. A minority (employers) decides all those questions and excludes the majority (employees) from making those decisions, even though that majority must live with their results. Of course, the top priority now is to put public health and safety first. To that end, employees across the country are now thinking about refusing to obey orders to work in unsafe job conditions. U.S. capitalism has thus placed a general strike on today's social agenda. A close second priority is to learn from capitalism's failure in the face of the pandemic. We must not suffer such a dangerous and unnecessary social breakdown again. Thus system change is now also moving onto today's social agenda.”

Richard D. Wolff (1942) American economist

COVID-19 and the Failures of Capitalism (2020)

Home , Question , Country , Suffering

“Many other people say I'm bent, and I've heard it so many times that I've almost learned to accept it ... I know I'm perfectly as capable of being swayed by a girl as by a boy. More and more people feel that way and I don't see why I shouldn't.”

Dusty Springfield (1939–1999) English singer and record producer

As quoted in a September 1970 Ray Connolly interview http://www.rayconnolly.co.uk/pages/journalism_01/journalism_01_item.asp?journalism_01ID=78 for the Evening Standard.

Time , Girl , People , Boy

“The trouble with you, Ti, lectured Leo kindly, is that you lack teaching experience. If you had, you’d have faith that the most unlikely people can learn the most amazing things.”

Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan Saga

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, Falling Free (1988), Chapter 9 (pp. 166-167)

Faith , People

“This power, I tell them, shall change the face of the Earth. No more shall small groups, nor even single men, be able to rule multitudes through hunger in their bellies; for there shall no more be hunger nor want nor cold; and in time again there shall be no more disease, for as man learns to live in harmony with nature, instead of continually struggling against it, he will destroy the cause of disease.”

Desmond Leslie (1921–2001) British pilot, film maker, writer, and musician

Source: The Amazing Mr. Lutterworth (1958), p. 206

Hunger , Time , Nature , Disease

“Learning isn’t a means to an end; it is an end in itself.”

Robert A. Heinlein book Time for the Stars

Source: Time for the Stars (1956), Chapter 7, “19,900 Ways” (p. 70)

“I do like social medias because of the instant feedback and interaction. I try to keep fans up to date with what I’m doing and try to show them who I am and what I’m passionate about. I also follow a lot of artists myself because I like learning more about the people I respect.”

MacKenzie Porter (1990) Canadian actress, singer and musician

Boots & Hearts 2013 Exclusive Q&A: Mackenzie Porter https://www.thereviewsarein.com/2013/08/04/boots-hearts-2013-exclusive-qa-mackenzie-porter/ (August 4, 2013)

Passion , People

“I learned to pay attention to the readers and not to the madness…Because to be a writer in Turkey is a bit like being kissed on one cheek and slapped on the other.”

Elif Shafak (1971) Turkish writer

On focusing on her readership in “Elif Shafak: ‘I thought the British were calm about politics. Not any longer’” https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/sep/16/elif-shalak-i-thought-the-british-were-calm-about-politics-booker-prize-shortlist in The Guardian (2019 Sep 16)

Madness , Kiss

“Go down to City Hall and see what is on the agenda for the next council meeting—garbage collection, water supply, it does not matter which one—then go and learn everything you can about it. Read past reports, talk to people, learn the topic until you know it as well as anyone. Then when you get up to speak, or to make a suggestion for change, your voice will be heard because you are knowledgeable. That is how reform works.”

Louis Brandeis (1856–1941) American Supreme Court Justice

According to daughter Elizabeth Brandeis Raushenbush, as told to biographer Melvin I. Urofsky, Louis D. Brandeis: A Life (2009), p. 130.
Attributed

Reading , Past , People , Knowledge

“Three or four decades ago, society believed it efficient and fair to use one standard to evaluate all (high school) students. Since then, there has been a paradigm shift toward a pluralistic model of learning and university recruitment.”

Hocheng Hong (1958) Taiwanese politician

Hocheng Hong (2018) cited in " Breaking the Class Ceiling https://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=12,33&post=140317" on Taiwan Today, 1 September 2018

School , Universe

“Learn to measure the people you deal with by the depth of their soul, and if possible associate as much as you can with those of the expansive variety.”

Robert Greene (1959) American author

Chap. 8 : Change Your Circumstances by Changing Your Attitude
The Laws of Human Nature (2018)

Soul , People

“Before the lower 'occult powers' of any kind are cultivated, man must learn the first lesson of the Higher Occultism, the mystic knowledge, which is to control himself; and all powers that later he gains must be laid on the altar of impersonal service - on the altar of service to mankind.”

Gottfried de Purucker (1874–1942) Author, Theosophist

The Masters and the Path of Occultism (1939)

Knowledge

“They are here among us. Let us be wise enough to learn from those who can teach us much — who will be our friends if we will but let them!”

George Adamski (1891–1965) American ufologist

Flying Saucers Have Landed

“This sense of things...getting out of control very quickly is a lesson that we’ve forgotten. [...] I hope we don’t learn it in the wrong way. This is what you’re risking when you talk about fire and fury.”

Mick Jackson (director) (1943) film director

On Donald Trump's rhetoric to North Korea
The Director of the Scariest Movie We've Ever Seen Still Fears Nuclear War the Most

Sense , Way , Hope

“I like to say that neurotypical social interaction is a second language. It’s not as if we can’t learn it. It’s just that it doesn’t necessarily come easily to us.”

Ari Ne'eman (1987) American autism rights advocate

The Autism Rights Movement

“What we are most anxious about is our anxiety itself: the greatest of all sins, Auden learns from Kafka, is impatience — and he decides that the hero “is, in fact, one who is not anxious.””

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

But it was inevitable that Auden should arrive at this point. His anxiety is fundamental; and the one thing that anxiety cannot do is to accept itself, to do nothing about itself — consequently it admires more than anything else in the world doing nothing, sitting still, waiting.

“Freud to Paul: The Stages of Auden’s Ideology”, p. 180
The Third Book of Criticism (1969)

“A guide to me in times of plight
A princess like a star so bright
For life would never have been the same
If I hadn’t of learned what small things came. So forgive me Mum just a little more
For not loving you so much before,
For life and love you gave to me
I give my thanks for eternity.”

Bobby Sands (1954–1981) Irish volunteer of the Provisional Irish Republican Army

Poetry, Dear Mum

Forgiveness , Time , Star , Princess

“Our home, a pale blue dot
in the vastness of universe's untouched beauty,
a tiny, spherical world,
afloat in a immensity of space and time.
Here for a moment,
and then we're leaving for the eternity.
In the school of mortality
we learn to acrobat over the abyss.”

alexis karpouzos

mystic poetry and spirituality

School , Home , Time , Beauty

“Germany...deliberately appealed to the arbitrament of the sword. Now, when she is beginning to learn that the world is not a sheep to be butchered, but that it has both the means and the will to defend itself, she talks about a “League of Nations.””

Billy Hughes (1862–1952) Australian politician, seventh prime minister of Australia

Had she achieved world power, would our fate have differed from that of Russia or Rumania? Would she then have talked about a League of Nations?

Speech in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester (26 August 1918), quoted in The Times (27 August 1918), p. 8

World

“There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser guards belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"To Juan at the Winter Solstice" from Poems 1938-1945 (1946)
Poems

“Write your own name and your sweetheart's, with the smoke of a candle on the roof of the kitchen, or the servants hall, to show your learning.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

“…There’s two sides of the coin: One where people don't expect you to do anything and won't let you do anything because they think you don't know how, and then the other side is when you're fucking up but they won't tell you because you're a girl. Then you don’t learn.”

Esperanza Spalding (1984) American jazz bassist and singer

On how recording in the studio can be a double-edged sword in “Esperanza Spalding: Insubordinate by Nature” https://pitchfork.com/features/interview/9830-esperanza-spalding-insubordinate-by-nature/ in Pitchfork (2016 Mar 8)

Girl , Thinking , People

“I myself had rather excel others in excellency of learning than in greatness of power.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Alexander, sec. 7
Parallel Lives

“To wear away the time, we learn to play chess,
In thousands, horses and infantry chase each other.
Move quickly into action, in attack or in retreat.
Talent and swift feet give us the upper hand.”

Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam

"Learning to Play Chess"
1950's

Horse , Time

“I’m still learning, I’m still finding stuff that fascinates me. I’m still putting people out front who I call the “unsung””

Beverly Jenkins (1951) American author of historical and contemporary romance novels

those who once had places in history and made a difference, but who have now been forgotten. Because, you know, you bring them back to life [when you write about them], and they live again.

On writing about unsung figures in “Romance Novelist Beverly Jenkins Talks Normalizing Diversity in Her Genre” https://www.shondaland.com/inspire/books/a12821649/beverly-jenkins-romance-interview/ in Shondaland (2017 Oct 12)

People

“The biggest existential risk to humanity is humanity itself, unless human beings learn to coexist peacefully and help one another willingly.”

Newton Lee American computer scientist

The Transhumanism Handbook, 2019

Help

“Philosophizing is a process of making sense out of experience, rather than adding to experience itself, as factual learning and experimental investigation do.”

Susanne K. Langer (1895–1985) American philosopher

Source: Philosophical Sketches (1962), Ch. 9, p. 160

Sense , Making love

Quotes about learning page 65

Quotes about learning
page 65