Quotes about school and education
page 14

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John Vorster photo

“…the policy of separate development can be tested by any unprejudiced person against the requirements of Christianity and morality, and it will be found to meet all those requirements. … for conditions such as those in South Africa there is no other policy[, for without it] you will have chaos and ultimately bring about the downfall of all population groups here in South Africa. South Africa's problems are unique and South Africa has chosen its solution. …we, the Whites, the Coloureds, the Asians and the Bantu, will work out our own solutions here in South Africa. …we instituted the policy of separate development, not because we considered ourselves better than others, not because we considered ourselves richer or more educated than others. We instituted the policy of separate development because we said we were different from others. We prize that otherness and are not prepared to relinquish it. … We have our land and we and we alone will have author­ity over it. We have our Parliament and in that Parliament we and we alone will be represented; that is why [during] this past session it was my pleasant privilege to … abolish Coloured representation in Parliament; and it has been abolished once and for all. … but one should also put something in its place. That is why the National Party … for the first time [has given] the Coloureds in the Republic a Coloured Persons Representative Council in their own political area [where they] can exercise their political rights in their own way and by their own people. That is morality, that is policy, that is standpoint. … We said you may not attend my university, but we did not leave it at that. We said we shall give you a university of your own. We said you may not attend my school but we said we shall give you a school of your own. That is morality, that is Christianity …”

John Vorster (1915–1983) politician from South Africa and seventh Prime Minister of South Africa

John Vorster in his Heilbron speech http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/extract-speech-made-heilbron-16-august-1968 on 16 August 1968, as quoted in sahistory.org.za

Roberto Mangabeira Unger photo

“Obama’s manner in dealing with other people and acting in the world fully exemplifies the cheerful impersonal friendliness—the middle distance—that marks American sociability. (Now allow me to speak as a critic. Remember Madame de Staël’s meetings that deprive us of solitude without affording us company? Or Schopenhauer’s porcupines, who shift restlessly from getting cold at a distance to prickling one another at close quarters, until they settle into some acceptable compromise position?) The cheerful impersonal friendliness serves to mask recesses of loneliness and secretiveness in the American character, and no less with Obama than with anyone else. He is enigmatic—and seemed so as much then as now—in a characteristically American way…. Moreover, he excelled at the style of sociability that is most prized in the American professional and business class and serves as the supreme object of education in the top prep schools: how to cooperate with your peers by casting on them a spell of charismatic seduction, which you nevertheless disguise under a veneer of self-depreciation and informality. Obama did not master this style in prep school, but he became a virtuoso at it nevertheless, as the condition of preferment in American society that it is. As often happens, the outsider turned out to be better at it than the vast majority of the insiders…. Together with the meritocratic educational achievements, the mastery of the preferred social style turns Obama into what is, in a sense, the first American elite president—that is the first who talks and acts as a member of the American elite—since John Kennedy …. Obama's mixed race, his apparent and assumed blackness, his non-elite class origins and lack of inherited money, his Third-World childhood experiences—all this creates the distance of the outsider, while the achieved elite character makes the distance seem less threatening.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Quoted in David Remnick, The Bridgeː The Life and Rise of Barack Obama (2010), p. 185-6
On Barack Obama

Harry V. Jaffa photo
Mukesh Ambani photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Guy Lafleur photo

“It was tough going to school in the day and traveling to games at night. Sometimes we would get back about midnight. I never went to dances or hung around with girls. Hockey was the first thing.”

Guy Lafleur (1951) Canadian ice hockey player

Quoted in Kevin Shea, "One on One with Guy Lafleur," http://www.legendsofhockey.net/html/spot_oneononep198802.htm Legends of Hockey.net (2003-03-16)

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Tommy Lee Jones photo
David Korten photo
Ali Shariati photo
Madeleine K. Albright photo

“I'm not a person who thinks the world would be entirely different if it was run by women. If you think that, you've forgotten what high school was like.”

Madeleine K. Albright (1937–2022) Former U.S. Secretary of State

Quoted http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1215791,00.html in Time (July 18, 2006)
2000s

Anthony Burgess photo
Mahatma Gandhi photo
John Frusciante photo
John Cage photo

““Organization theory,” a term that appeared in the middle of the twentieth century, has multiple meanings. When it first emerged, the term expressed faith in scientific research as a way to gain understanding of human beings and their interactions. Although scientific research had been occurring for several centuries, the idea that scientific research might enhance understanding of human behavior was considerably newer and rather few people appreciated it. Simon (1950, 1952-3, 1952) was a leading proponent for the creation of “organization theory”, which he imagined as including scientific management, industrial engineering, industrial psychology, the psychology of small groups, human-resources management, and strategy. The term “organization theory” also indicated an aspiration to state generalized, abstract propositions about a category of social systems called “organizations,” which was a very new concept. Before and during the 1800s, people had regarded armies, schools, churches, government agencies, and social clubs as belonging to distinct categories, and they had no name for the union of these categories. During the 1920s, some people began to perceive that diverse kinds of medium-sized social systems might share enough similarities to form a single, unified category. They adopted the term “organization” for this unified category.”

Philippe Baumard (1968) French academic

William H. Starbuck and Philippe Baumard (2009). "The seeds, blossoming, and scant yield of organization theory," in: Jacques Rojot et. al (eds.) Comportement organisationnel - Volume 3 De Boeck Supérieur. p. 15

Eminem photo

“I try to keep it positive and play it cool, shoot up the playground and tell the kids to stay in school.”

Eminem (1972) American rapper and actor

"I'm Shady" (Track 18).
1990s, The Slim Shady LP (1999)

Robert M. Pirsig photo
Kevin Henkes photo
Ethan Hawke photo
Ralph Waldo Emerson photo
Bram Cohen photo

“One thing about school - I always had this attitude that I was in school to learn, and attempted to do whatever was involved in that process, while school had this attitude that I was there to earn grades, which I couldn't care less about. Unsurprisingly, my grades weren't very good.”

Bram Cohen (1975) American programmer, creator of BitTorrent

"Bram Cohen: Creator of BitTorrent" http://wrongplanet.net/modules.php?name=Articles&pa=showpage&pid=98, WrongPlanet.net, undated; accessed March 9, 2006, 17:01 (UTC)

“I'm aware it's now a hostile city [New York City]. I feel I'm in school, actually. There are signs everywhere you don't get in any other city. When you see all the smokers outside a building in New York, I just think the building is full of bad-mannered people who haven't thought, "We'll give them a little room to smoke in."”

David Hockney (1937) British artist

That's what a reasonable person, a person with good manners, would do.
Interview with Marion Finlay, "Hockney on … politics, pleasure, and smoking in public places," FOREST Online (28 July 2004)
2000s

Francis Heylighen photo
Nick Clegg photo
Jean Cocteau photo

“Respect movements, flee schools.”

Jean Cocteau (1889–1963) French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

Junot Díaz photo
Jacob Bronowski photo
André Maurois photo

“We don't go to school to learn, but to be soaked in the prejudices of our class, without which we should be useless and unhappy.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Les silences du colonel Bramble (The Silence of Colonel Bramble)

Vyjayanthimala photo
Peter F. Drucker photo
Bill Engvall photo
Syd Barrett photo
Gary Johnson photo
Aron Ra photo
Immanuel Kant photo
Miyamoto Musashi photo
Gottfried Helnwein photo

“In retrospect I would say from Donald Duck I have learned more about life than from all the schools I ever attended.”

Gottfried Helnwein (1948) Austrian photographer and painter

Memories of Duckburg, http://www.helnwein.com/texte/helnweintexts/artikel_398.html, Zeit Magazin, Hamburg, 1989

William F. Sharpe photo
Ward Churchill photo

“Mel H. Buffalo, an advisor to the Samson [Cree] band in Hobbema, Alberta, reported that "every Indian person I've spoken to who attended these schools has a story of mental, physical or sexual abuse to relate."”

Ward Churchill (1947) Political activist

[Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools, City Lights Books, San Francisco, CA, November 2004, 64, 0872864340]
Churchill's source: [Miller, J.R., Shingwauk's Vision: A History of the Indian Residential Schools, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, May 24, 1996, 333, 0802078583]

Victor Villaseñor photo
Herman Cain photo
John Lancaster Spalding photo
Daniel Tosh photo
George W. Bush photo
Tom Hanks photo
Rousas John Rushdoony photo
Rose Wilder Lane photo

“Orioles fly over tall grasses in second-month weather;
Willows sweep the riverbank, intoxicated with mist.
Children return home in haste after school,
Eager to fly kites when there is yet wind.”

"Living in a Village" (《村居》), in Four-line poems of the Jin, Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties (Translated in English), p. 311 (ISBN 978-7560025827)
Variant translation:
Grass is stretching, birds are dancing in the spring days.
The willow trees wholeheartedly absorb the sun's rays.
My after-school schedule today is unusually tight.
The first business is, of course, in east wind to kite.
"Country Life", as translated by Xian Mao in Children's Version of 60 Classical Chinese Poems, p. 60 (ISBN 978-1468559040)

Paul Graham photo
Amanda Lear photo

“I knew nothing when I first met him. He taught me to see things through his eyes. Dalí was my teacher. He let me use his brushes, his paint and his canvas, so that I could play around while he was painting for hours and hours in the same studio. Surrealism was a good school for me. Listening to Dalí talk was better than going to any art school.”

Amanda Lear (1939) singer, lyricist, composer, painter, television presenter, actress, model

http://www.3d-dali.com/centennial-magazine/e-9-muse.htm, Salvador Dali Centennial Magazine – Amanda Lear, 15 June 2004, 3d-dali.com, 15 July 2018

Robert Skidelsky photo
Charles Manson photo

“I wanna say this to every man that has a mind, to all the intelligent life forms that exist on this planet Earth. I wish the British would say this to the Scottish Rites and the Masons and all the people with minds who have degrees of knowledge, and who are aware of courts, laws, United Nations, governments.
In the 40s, we had a war, and all of our economies went towards this war effort. The war ended on one level, but we wouldn't let it end on the other levels. We kept buying and selling this war. I'm not locked in the penitentiary for crimes, I'm locked in the Second World War. I'm locked in the Second World War with this decision to bring to the World Court - there must be a One World Court, or we're all gonna be devoured by crime.
Crime, and the definition of crime comes from Nuremberg, when the judges decided that they wanted to call Second World War a crime. Honor and war is not a crime. Crime is bad. When you go to war and you're a soldier, and you fight for your God and your country, that's not criminal. That's honorable. That's what you must do to be a man. If you don't fight for your God and your country, you're not worth anything. If you have no honor, then you're not worth petty's pigs.
Truth is, we've got to overturn this decision that you made in the Second World War, or the Second World War will never end. Degrees of the war was written in Switzerland, in Geneva, at conferences that were made by the men at the tables, clearly stated that anyone in uniform would be given the respect of their rank and their uniforms. Then when the United States and got all the Germans in handcuffs, they started breaking their own rules. And they've been breaking their own rules ever since. War is not a crime, but if you judge war as a crime in a court room, then turn around: If 2 + 3 = 5, and 3 + 2 = 5; if you say war is a crime, then crime becomes your war. I am, by all standards, a prisoner of war.
I've been a prisoner of war since 1944 in Juvenile Hall, for setting a school building on fire in Indianapolis, Indiana. I've been locked up 45 years trying to figure out why I got to be a criminal. It matters not whether I want to be; you've got to keep criminals going to keep the war going because that's your economy, your whole economy is based on the war. You've got to get your dollar bills off the war, you've got your silver market sterling off of the war, you've got to take your gold and your diamonds off of the war - You've got to overturn that decision, that hung 6000 men by the neck.
You killed 6000 soldiers for obeying orders. It's wrong. And the world has got to accept that's wrong. When you accept you're wrong, and you say you're sorry for all the things you've done, then that will be a note on that court, and we'll have some harmony going on this planet Earth, now.”

Charles Manson (1934–2017) American criminal and musician

Interview with Bill Murphy (1994) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAjh_wOByoY

Arshile Gorky photo
Michael Moore photo
William Burges photo

“Allowing, therefore, the great usefulness of the Government Schools, the Exhibitions, and the Museums both public and private, the question now arises as to what are the impediments to our future progress. The principal ones appear to me to be three.
# A want of a distinctive architecture, which is fatal to art generally.
# The want of a good costume, which is fatal to colour; and
# The want of a sufficient teaching of the figure, which is fatal to art in detail.
It will perhaps be as well to take these one by one.
The most fatal impediment of the three is undeniably the want of a distinctive architecture in the nineteenth century. Architecture is commonly called the mother of all the other arts, and these latter are all more or less affected by it in their details. In almost every age of the world except our own only one style of architecture has been in use, and consequently only one set of details. The designer had accordingly to master, 1. the figure, and the great principles of ornament; 2. those details of the architecture then practised which were necessary to his trade; and 3. the technical processes. Now what is the case in the present day? If we take a walk in the streets of London we may see at least half-a-dozen sorts of architecture, all with different details; and if we go to a museum we shall find specimens of the furniture, jewellery, &c., of these said different styles all beautifully classed and labelled. The student, instead of confining himself to one style as in former times, is expected to be master of all these said half-dozen, which is just as reasonable as asking him to write half-a-dozen poems in half-a-dozen languages, carefully preserving the idiomatic peculiarities of each. This we all know to be an impossibility, and the end is that our student, instead of thoroughly applying the principles of ornament to one style, is so bewildered by having the half-dozen on his hands, that he ends by knowing none of them as he ought to do. This is the case in almost every trade; and until the question of style gets gets settled, it is utterly hopeless to think about any great improvement in modern art.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 8-9; Partly cited in: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. Vol. 99. 1951. p. 520

Michelle Obama photo

“Intelligence test scores and marks in school are not always true indicators of the worth of a student, nor even the power of his intellect.”

Jack R, Maguire, "Editorial: The Case for the C-Average Student", The Alcalde, September 1961, p. 5 http://books.google.com/books?id=qdIDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA5
Attributed

Beck photo
Jim Steinman photo

“I never had a girl
Looking any better than you did
And all the kids at school
They were wishing they were me that night.”

Jim Steinman (1947) American musician

Bat out of Hell (1977), Paradise by the Dashboard Light

Alex Salmond photo
Dan Quayle photo
Arlo Guthrie photo
Mark Steyn photo
Daniel Radcliffe photo

“When I go back to school everyone asks a lot of questions. Then, after about a week, when I've answered everything, we get back to normal”

Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor

http://www.movietome.com/people/86509/daniel-radcliffe/trivia.html

“Mythology is wondrous, a balm for the soul. But its problems cannot be ignored. At worst, it buys inspiration at the price of physical impossibility […]. At best, it purveys the same myopic view of history that made this most fascinating subject so boring and misleading in grade school as a sequential take of monarchs and battles.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"Baseball and the Two Faces of Janus", p. 259; originally published as "The Virtues of Nakedness" in The New York Review of Books (1990-10-11)
Triumph and Tragedy in Mudville (2003)

Stuart A. Umpleby photo
Barend Cornelis Koekkoek photo

“Fortunately however, is that [painting] school where Mother Nature is placed in the foreground, and where only she is consulted to representate 'truth' on the canvas or panel. Only he knows the secrets of the manifold diversity of nature. His painting is a faithful copy of nature - which is the highest praise for a painter..”

Barend Cornelis Koekkoek (1803–1862) painter from the Northern Netherlands

(original Dutch, citaat van B.C. Koekkoek:) Gelukkig echter de [schilder]school, waar moeder Natuur op den voorgrond staat, en zij alleen geraadpleegd wordt om 'waarheid' op het doek of paneel voor te stellen. – Hij kent de geheimen van de veelvuldige schakeringen der natuur, zijne schilderij is ene getrouwe kopij der natuur, ziedaar den hoogsten lof, die een schilder kan toegezwaaid worden..
Source: Herinneringen aan en Mededeelingen van…' (1841), p. 27-28

Thomas Browne photo
Frank Stella photo
R. H. Tawney photo
David Miscavige photo

“Scientology is now run by David Miscavige, 31, a high school dropout and second-generation church member. Defectors describe him as cunning, ruthless and so paranoid about perceived enemies that he kept plastic wrap over his glass of water.”

David Miscavige (1960) leader of the Church of Scientology

[Richard, Behar, Richard Behar, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,972865,00.html, The Thriving Cult of Greed and Power, Time, May 6, 1991, 2010-07-03].
About

Rand Paul photo

“Rachel Maddow: Do you think that a private business has the right to say we don't serve black people?Rand Paul: I'm not in favor of any discrimination of any form; I would never belong to any club that excluded anybody for race. We still do have private clubs in America that can discriminate based on race. But I think what's important about this debate is not written into any specific "gotcha" on this, but asking the question: what about freedom of speech? Should we limit speech from people we find abhorrent? Should we limit racists from speaking? I don't want to be associated with those people, but I also don't want to limit their speech in any way in the sense that we tolerate boorish and uncivilized behavior because that's one of the things freedom requires is that we allow people to be boorish and uncivilized, but that doesn't mean we approve of it. I think the problem with this debate is by getting muddled down into it, the implication is somehow that I would approve of any racism or discrimination, and I don't in any form or fashion.I do defend and believe that the government should not be involved with institutional racism or discrimination or segregation in schools, busing, all those things. But had I been there, there would have been some discussion over one of the titles of the civil rights. And I think that's a valid point, and still a valid discussion, because the thing is, is if we want to harbor in on private businesses and their policies, then you have to have the discussion about: do you want to abridge the First Amendment as well. Do you want to say that because people say abhorrent things — you know, we still have this. We're having all this debate over hate speech and this and that. Can you have a newspaper and say abhorrent things? Can you march in a parade and believe in abhorrent things, you know?”

Rand Paul (1963) American politician, ophthalmologist, and United States Senator from Kentucky

The Rachel Maddow Show
MSNBC
2010-05-19
Rand Paul on 'Maddow' fallout begins
Maddow Blog
MSNBC
2010-05-20
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2010/05/20/4313688-rand-paul-on-maddow-fallout-begins
2010-11-17
2010s

Peter Kropotkin photo
Larry the Cable Guy photo

“A buddy of mine was mad at his son the other day 'cause he got caught having sex with his teacher. I thought, "Hey, that's pretty cool!"”

Larry the Cable Guy (1963) American stand-up comedian, actor, country music artist, voice artist

Problem was, he was home-schooled.
Tailgate Party (2009)

William Saroyan photo
Henry Hazlitt photo
Stephen Harper photo
Rick Perry photo
Mickey Spillane photo

“When you sit at home comfortably folded up in a chair beside a fire, have you ever thought what goes on outside there? Probably not. You pick up a book and read about things and stuff, getting a vicarious kick from people and events that never happened. You're doing it now, getting ready to fill in a normal life with the details of someone else's experiences. Fun, isn't it? You read about life on the outside thinking about how maybe you'd like it to happen to you, or at least how you'd like to watch it. Even the old Romans did it, spiced their life with action when they sat in the Coliseum and watched wild animals rip a bunch of humans apart, reveling in the sight of blood and terror. They screamed for joy and slapped each other on the back when murderous claws tore into the live flesh of slaves and cheered when the kill was made. Oh, it's great to watch, all right. Life through a keyhole. But day after day goes by and nothing like that ever happens to you so you think that it's all in books and not in reality at all and that's that. Still good reading, though. Tomorrow night you'll find another book, forgetting what was in the last and live some more in your imagination. But remember this: there are things happening out there. They go on every day and night making Roman holidays look like school picnics. They go on right under your very nose and you never know about them. Oh yes, you can find them all right. All you have to do is look for them. But I wouldn't if I were you because you won't like what you'll find. Then again, I'm not you and looking for those things is my job. They aren't nice things to see because they show people up for what they are. There isn't a coliseum any more, but the city is a bigger bowl, and it seats more people. The razor-sharp claws aren't those of wild animals but man's can be just as sharp and twice as vicious. You have to be quick, and you have to be able, or you become one of the devoured, and if you can kill first, no matter how and no matter who, you can live and return to the comfortable chair and the comfortable fire. But you have to be quick. And able. Or you'll be dead.”

Mickey Spillane (1918–2006) American writer

My Gun is Quick (1950)

Michael Savage photo

“At least some Americans are still having children. Unfortunately, many of those children spend their formative years being taught how to surrender. The emasculation of American boys is one step short of suicide. […] Schoolyards used to be filled with kids at recess playing games like "kill the guy with the ball." Nobody died. Boys played with G. I. Joes and girls played with dolls. Kids played freeze tag without a single incident of sexual harassment. […] Not too many years ago, cartoons were filled with violence. Bugs Bunny tied a gun barrel in a knot and Elmer Fudd's gun went kaboom, covering his own head in black soot. Wile E. Coyote chased the Road Runner and fell off a cliff to his destruction. We as children watched Superman cartoons, but we knew not to try and jump off the roof. Teenage boys watched Rocky and Rambo and Conan films. Then they went home without trying to kill anybody. […] We did not need liberals to tell us the difference between pretend and real life. Common sense and our parents handled that. Now schools across the country are canceling gym class. Dodgeball apparently promotes aggression […]. Even rock-paper-scissors is too violent. Rocks and scissors could be used by children to harm each other. Paper requires murdering trees. It's no wonder that Islamists produce strapping young men while America produces sensitive crybabies […]. Muslim children are taught hate in madrassas. They are taught how to kill infidels and the blasphemers. American boys are suspended from school for arranging their school lunch vegetables in the shape of a gun. […] During World War II, young boys volunteered to go overseas to save the world. […] Now American kids on college campuses retreat to their safe spaces to escape from potential microagressions. Islamists cut off heads and limbs and our young boys shriek at the drop of a microaggression. And we haven't seen the worst of it.”

Michael Savage (1942) U.S. radio talk show host, Commentator, and Author

Scorched Earth: Restoring the Country after Obama (2016)

Art Spiegelman photo

“I was asking the school shrink, 'Has anyone ever told you the top of your head looks like a penis?' I thought that was a really funny thing to tell a bald shrink.”

Art Spiegelman (1948) cartoonist from the United States

As quoted in "Breakfast with the FT: Art Spiegelman 'Drawn from Memory'" in Financial Times (29 November 2008).

Daniel Johns photo
Hugo Chávez photo

“Knowing English is important, but for us Venezuelans I think it would also be important to know Portuguese. For that reason, we should evaluate the possibility of it being taught in our schools.”

Hugo Chávez (1954–2013) 48th President of Venezuela

Hugo Chávez during his television/radio show ¡Aló Presidente! on October 2, 2005.
2005

Geert Wilders photo