Quotes about studying

A collection of quotes on the topic of study, other, use, work.

Best quotes about studying

“Study the past if you would define the future.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“The studied spontaneity of Horace.”

Petronius book Satyricon

Satyricon

“Avoid studies of which the result dies with the worker.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
Variant: Shun those studies in which the work that results dies with the worker.

“The more we study Art, the less we care for Nature.”

Oscar Wilde book Intentions

What Art really reveals to us is Nature's lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition.
Intentions (1891)

“I have studied these things — you have not.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

Reported as Newton's response, whenever Edmond Halley would say anything disrespectful of religion, by Sir David Brewster in The Life of Sir Isaac Newton (1831). This has often been quoted in recent years as having been a statement specifically defending Astrology. Newton wrote extensively on the importance of Prophecy, and studied Alchemy, but there is little evidence that he took favourable notice of astrology http://www.staff.science.uu.nl/~gent0113/astrology/newton.htm. In a footnote, Brewster attributes the anecdote to the astronomer Nevil Maskelyne who is said to have passed it on to Oxford professor Stephen Peter Rigaud http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gLcVAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA301&lpg=PA301&dq=brewster+newton+%22I+have+studied%22&source=bl&ots=dEwk6nHcSa&sig=F2uReuXjRWwL3w647pfaU1PlbC0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fqu5UpzkAvOA7Qap9oGoDQ&ved=0CGoQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=brewster%20newton%20%22I%20have%20studied%22&f=false

“Amusement to an observing mind is study.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Part 1, Chapter 23.
Books, Coningsby (1844), Contarini Fleming (1832)

“Life is a test, make sure you study for it.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1972

“The proper study of mankind is woman.”

Coventry Patmore (1823–1896) English poet

Vol. II, Ch. V Aphorisms and Extracts, p. 77.
Memoirs and Correspondence (1900)

“He did not study God; he was dazzled by him.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

“If you once love Him, you will study to please Him.”

John Newton (1725–1807) Anglican clergyman and hymn-writer

Quotes about studying

“If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of goodbye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn't come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn come to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. "Be Prepared" in this way, to live happy and to die happy - stick to your Scout promise always - even after you have ceased to be a boy - and God help you do it.”

Robert Baden-Powell (1857–1941) lieutenant-general in the British Army, writer, founder and Chief Scout of the Scout Movement

Life, God, Happiness, People

“Teachers have to be learners. They have to treat each new group of students as a different group, fresh and unknown. Teachers often perceive new students as being the same as those in the previous group and apply the same practice to them. If teachers are learners, they will study the new group of students in order to identify their strengths and weaknesses, then teach them accordingly.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

Teacher

Teachers

“I obtained scientific guidance and stimulation mainly through personal mathematical contacts in Erlangen and in Göttingen. Above all I am indebted to Mr. E. Fischer from whom I received the decisive impulse to study abstract algebra from an arithmetical viewpoint, and this remained the governing idea for all my later work.”

Emmy Noether (1882–1935) German mathematician

Mathematics, Idea, Decision, Personality

“There are many variables intertwined in every problem and components of all the variable involved have to be carefully studied. Forming solutions by studying and synthesizing the relationship among key variables seems to be very much in need. The ability to identify a meaning from observable and obtained data is the core of human characteristics in such changing society. Hence, inductive thinking has to be instilled in every learner for a productive citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.”

Sukavich Rangsitpol (1935) Thai politician

citizenship in the changing world of tomorrow.

World, Problem, Thinking, Change

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Science

“Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.”

Avicenna (980–1037) medieval Persian polymath, physician, and philosopher

"On Medicine, (c. 1020) http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/1020Avicenna-Medicine.html Context: The knowledge of anything, since all things have causes, is not acquired or complete unless it is known by its causes. Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health. And because health and sickness and their causes are sometimes manifest, and sometimes hidden and not to be comprehended except by the study of symptoms, we must also study the symptoms of health and disease. Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials. Of these causes there are four kinds: material, efficient, formal, and final.

Knowledge, Science

“To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.”

Marilyn vos Savant (1946) US American magazine columnist, author and lecturer

As quoted in Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue (2001) by Sandra Ford Walston

Wisdom, Knowledge

“I studied Italian five hours a day for many months to ensure I could communicate with the players, media and fans. [Claudio] Ranieri had been in England for five years and still struggled to say ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

http://www.goal.com/en/news/1716/champions-league/2009/02/23/1122426/italy-v-england-10-classic-jose-mourinho-quotes Chelsea FC

Communication

“The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.”

Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

People, Truth, Literature

“The Bible is the greatest of all books; to study it is the noblest of all pursuits; to understand it, the highest of all goals.”

Charles C. Ryrie (1925–2016) Dispensationalist theologian

Books, Understanding

“Ever since I was a little boy, I would study composition. And it was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky that influenced me the most. If you take an album like Nutcracker Suite, every song is killer, every one. So I said to myself, 'Why can't there be a pop album where every…' — People used to do an album where you'd get one good song, and the rest were like B-sides, they'd call them "album songs" — and I'd say to myself 'Why can't every one be like a hit song? Why can't every song be so great that people would want to buy it if you could release it as a single?. So I always tried to strive for that. That was the purpose for the next album.”

Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer

On musical influences
Ebony interview (2007)

People, Boy

“I know you want to study me psychologically. That's reasonable and I appreciate it. At least you don't lecture to me and pry into my affairs. You have a good technique as a psychiatrist. Let the other fellow talk and stick his neck into the noose. I don't mean that the way it sounds. But you hardly say anything. Someday I'm going to ask you questions.”

Hermann Göring (1893–1946) German politician and military leader

To Leon Goldensohn (21 May 1946)
The Nuremberg Interviews (2004)

Way, Question

“You learn to speak by speaking, to study by studying, to run by running, to work by working; in just the same way, you learn to love by loving.”

Anatole France (1844–1924) French writer

Je ne sais point de plus grande finesse pour parvenir à aimer que d'aimer, comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à parler en parlant, à travailler en travaillant.
Francis de Sales, quoted in Vie de saint François de Sales, évèque et prince de Genève by André Jean Marie Hamon (Librairie Victor Lecoffre, Paris, 1896), Vol. II, Book VII, Ch. V: Son amour pour Dieu
Variant of sourced quotation: Comme on apprend à étudier en étudiant, à jouer du luth en jouant, à nager en nageant; aussi apprend-on à aimer Dieu et le prochain en l'aimant. — Francis de Sales, quoted in Jean-Pierre Camus, "L'esprit du bienheureux saint François de Sales" (1641), Part I, Section 31; published in Oeuvres complètes de saint François de Sales, ed. Jean-Irénée Depéry (Berche et Tralin, Paris, 1875), Vol. I
Misattributed

Love, Way, Learning

“Music is so important to us. We hear music from the moment we are born, often via lullabies, and through many of the most important occasions in our lives, from graduations to weddings to funerals. There is something about music that seems to bring us closer to each other and help us come together as a community.
Humans are wired for music. Researchers recently discovered that we have a dedicated part of our brain for processing music, supporting the theory that it has a special, important function in our lives.
Listening to music and singing together has been shown in several studies to directly impact neuro-chemicals in the brain, many of which play a role in closeness and connection. Now new research suggests that playing music or singing together may be particularly potent in bringing about social closeness through the release of endorphins.
Through singing, drumming, and dancing—all resulted in participants having higher pain thresholds (a proxy measure for increased endorphin release in the brain) in comparison to listening to music alone. In addition, the performance of music resulted in greater positive emotion, suggesting one pathway through which people feel closer to one another when playing music together is through endorphin release.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, People, Music, Feeling

“We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

Tree, Universe

“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.”

Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) American architect (1867-1959)

As quoted in The Wright Style (1992) by Carla Lind, p. 3

Love, Nature, Beauty, Peaceful

“To develop a complete mind: Study the science of art; Study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Art, Learning, Science

“Study hard, for the well is deep, and our brains are shallow.”

Richard Baxter (1615–1691) English Puritan church leader, poet, and hymn-writer

Source: The Reformed Pastor

“There is an influence which is getting strong and stronger day by day, which shows itself more and more in all departments of human activity, and influence most fruitful and beneficial—the influence of the artist. It was a happy day for the mass of humanity when the artist felt the desire of becoming a physician, an electrician, an engineer or mechanician or—whatnot—a mathematician or a financier; for it was he who wrought all these wonders and grandeur we are witnessing. It was he who abolished that small, pedantic, narrow-grooved school teaching which made of an aspiring student a galley-slave, and he who allowed freedom in the choice of subject of study according to one's pleasure and inclination, and so facilitated development.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

"Roentgen Rays or Streams", Electrical Review (12 Aug 1896). Reprinted in The Nikola Tesla Treasury (2007), 307. By Nikola Tesla

Happiness, Pleasure, School, Freedom

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life, Death, People, Truth

“Study me as much as you like, you will never know me, for I differ a hundred ways from what you see me to be. Put yourself behind my eyes, and see me as I see myself, for I have chosen to dwell in a place you cannot see.”

Rumi (1207–1273) Iranian poet

Frequently quoted on social media, but was not written by Rumi in Persian.
Misattributed

Way

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clearheaded science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about the atoms this much: There is no matter as such! All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together…. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Spirit. This Spirit is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck (1858–1947) German theoretical physicist

Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max&#8209; Planck&#8209; Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797; the German original is as quoted in The Spontaneous Healing of Belief https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1 (2008) by Gregg Braden, p. 212; Braden mistranslates intelligenten Geist as "intelligent Mind", which is an obvious tautology.

Life, Intelligence, Science

“Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience.”

Niels Bohr (1885–1962) Danish physicist

"The Unity of Human Knowledge" (October 1960)
Context: Physics is to be regarded not so much as the study of something a priori given, but rather as the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience. In this respect our task must be to account for such experience in a manner independent of individual subjective judgement and therefore objective in the sense that it can be unambiguously communicated in ordinary human language.

“To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
General

Life, Faith, Time

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

Pain, People, Music, Feeling

“My longings, my hopes, my dreams, and my every effort has been to live for Him who rescued me, to study for Him who gave me this mind, to serve Him who fashioned my will, and to speak for Him who gave me a voice.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

Source: Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message

Dreams, Hope, Fashion, Effort

“If you love math, have a knack for numbers, study hard and become a successful accountant; who cares if you can't draw a straight line or sing on key?”

Nick Carter (1980) singer from the United States

Source: Facing the Music And Living To Talk About It

Love, Singing, Success, Drawing

“We have convictions only if we have studied nothing thoroughly.”

Emil M. Cioran book The Trouble With Being Born

The Trouble With Being Born (1973)

“… no one ever became excellent in any exercise whatsoever without beginning from his childhood to endure heat, cold, hunger, thirst, and other discomforts; wherefore those men are entirely deceived who think to be able, at their ease and with all the comforts of the world, to attain an honorable rank. It is not by sleeping but by waking and studying continually that progress is made. [on Luca Della Robbia]”

Giorgio Vasari (1511–1574) Italian painter, architect, writer and historian

Men, Hunger, World, Exercises

“Everything is possible to him who wills only what is true! Rest in Nature, study, know, then dare; dare to will, dare to act and be silent!”

Eliphas Levi (1810–1875) French writer

Source: Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual

Nature

“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.”

Joan Robinson (1903–1983) English economist

Source: Contributions to Modern Economics (1978), Chapter 7, Marx, Marshall and Keynes, p. 75

Question, Learning

“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Memory

“A mind of moderate capacity which closely pursues one study must infallibly arrive at great proficiency in that study.”

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus

Source: Frankenstein

“I studied every thing but never topped…. But today the toppers of the best universities are my employees”

Bill Gates (1955) American business magnate and philanthropist

Universe

“One learns more of Christ in being married and rearing children than in several lifetimes spent in study in a monastery.”

Martin Luther (1483–1546) seminal figure in Protestant Reformation

Children, Learning, Christ

“The historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma. The study of the Life of Jesus has had a curious history. It set out in quest of the historical Jesus, believing that when it had found Him it could bring Him straight into our time as a Teacher and Savior. It loosed the bands by which He had been riveted for centuries to the stony rocks of ecclesiastical doctrine, and rejoiced to see life and movement coming into the figure once more, and the historical Jesus advancing, as it seemed, to meet it. But He does not stay; He passes by our time and returns to His own. What surprised and dismayed the theology of the last forty years was that, despite all forced and arbitrary interpretations, it could not keep Him in our time, but had to let Him go. He returned to his own time, not owing to the application of any historical ingenuity, but by the same inevitable necessity by which the liberated pendulum returns to its original position.”

Albert Schweitzer book The Quest of the Historical Jesus

Source: The Quest of the Historical Jesus (1906), p. 397

Life, History, Teachers, Time

“A sample limited to one profession would have yielded results of doubtful generality. To develop findings independent of the peculiar circumstances of the engineer, we needed to study a comparable group. Accountants were chosen because their jobs, like those of engineers,· are rich in technique. This richness makes it likely that the accountant, like the engineer, would have much to tell us. However, the groups are vastly different in the nature of their training, their present degree of professionalization, the kind of work they do, and, presumably, the kind of people attracted into them. Last, by covering accountants and engineers, we examined the job attitudes of two of the most important staff groups in modern industry”

Frederick Herzberg (1923–2000) American psychologist

Source: The motivation to work, 1959, p. 32

People, Nature, Training

“Military history, especially Russian, is being studied poorly. We have a lot of unfair ridiculing of the old army despite the fact that we had such notable tsarist army generals as Suvorov, Kutuzov and Bagration who will always remain in the minds of the people as great Russian military leaders and who are revered in the Red Army as a legacy of the finest military traditions of the Russian soldier. There exists a harmful cult of Civil War heroes, while previous Russian military achievements are ignored. All of this leads to the ignoring of concrete historical experience despite the fact that history is the best teacher.”

Lev Mekhlis (1889–1953) Soviet politician

Mekhlis in 1940. Quoted in The People Need a Tsar: The Emergence of National Bolshevism as Stalinist Ideology, 1931-1941, by D. L. Brandenberger & A. M. Dubrovsky, 1998

War, People, History, Teachers

“It is a mistake to think that the practice of my art has become easy to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has given so much care to the study of composition as I. There is scarcely a famous master in music whose works I have not frequently and diligently studied.”

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer

Spoken in Prague, 1787, to conductor Kucharz, who led the rehearsals for Don Giovanni, from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906).

Art, Music, Thinking

“In one of the sinking spells [due to Cholera] which was thought to be the last, my father rushed into the room. I still see his pallid face as he tried to cheer me in tones belying his assurance. "Perhaps," I said, "I may get well if you will let me study engineering." "You will go to the best technical institution in the world," he solemnly replied, and I knew that he meant it. A heavy weight was lifted from my mind.… I came to life like Lazarus to the utter amazement of everybody.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

My Inventions (1919)

Life, World

“Learning is to a man as the leaves and branches are to a tree, and it can be said that he should not be without it. Learning is not only reading books, however, but is rather something that we study to integrate with our own way of life.
One who is born into the house of a warrior, regardless of his rank or class, first acquaints himself with a man of military feats and achievements in loyalty, and, listening to just one of his dictums each day, will in a month know 30 precepts. Needless to say, if in a year he learns 300 precepts, at the end of that time he will be much the better.
Thus, a man can divide his mind into three parts: he should throw out those thoughts that are evil, take up those ideas that are good, and become intimate with his own wisdom… I would honor and call wise the man who penetrates this principle, though he lacks the knowledge of a single Chinese character. As for those who are learned in other matters, I would avoid them regardless of how deep their knowledge might be. That is how shallow and untalented this monk is.”

Takeda Shingen (1521–1573) Japanese daimyo of the Sengoku period

William Scott Wilson, ‎Gregory Lee. Ideals of the Samurai: Writings of Japanese Warriors, 1982. p 95

Life, Wisdom, Books, Way

“If I had followed the multitude, I should not have studied philosophy.”

Chrysippus (-281–-208 BC) ancient Greek philosopher

As quoted by Diogenes Laërtius, vii. 182.

“The seeker after the truth is not one who studies the writings of the ancients and, following his natural disposition, puts his trust in them, but rather the one who suspects his faith in them and questions what he gathers from them, the one who submits to argument and demonstration, and not to the sayings of a human being whose nature is fraught with all kinds of imperfection and deficiency. Thus the duty of the man who investigates the writings of scientists, if learning the truth is his goal, is to make himself an enemy of all that he reads, and, applying his mind to the core and margins of its content, attack it from every side. He should also suspect himself as he performs his critical examination of it, so that he may avoid falling into either prejudice or leniency.”

Alhazen (965–1038) Arab physicist, mathematician and astronomer

Alhazen, quoted in “Muslim Journeys.” Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2013. Also in Ibn al-Haytham Brief life of an Arab mathematician: died circa 1040 (September-October 2003) http://harvardmagazine.com/2003/09/ibn-al-haytham-html

Truth, Faith, Question, Nature

“One needs only to study a certain positioning of the hand in relation to the keys to obtain with ease the most beautiful sounds, to know how to play long notes and short notes and to [attain] certain unlimited dexterity… A well formed technique, it seems to me, [is one] that can control and vary a beautiful sound quality.”

Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer

As quoted in Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils.
Source: Chopin : Pianist and Teacher as Seen by His Pupils (1986) by Jean-Jacques Eigeldinger, Roy Howat, Naomi Shohet, and Krysia Osostowicz, p. 16

Beauty

“When you wish to see whether the general effect of your picture corresponds with that of the object represented after nature, take a mirror and set it so that it reflects the actual thing, and then compare the reflection with your picture, and consider carefully whether the subject of the two images is in conformity with both, studying especially the mirror. The mirror ought to be taken as a guide… you see the picture made upon one plane showing things which appear in relief, and the mirror upon one plane does the same. The picture is on one single surface, and the mirror is the same. …if you but know well how to compose your picture it will also seem a natural thing seen in a great mirror.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci (1938), XXIX Precepts of the Painter

Nature, Appearance

“I climb up, go down again, then climb up once more; between all my studies, as a relaxation I explore every footpath, always curious to see something new.”

Claude Monet (1840–1926) French impressionist painter

Quote in Monet's letter from Bordighera (ca. 1884); as cited in: K.E. Sullivan. Monet: Discovering Art, Brockhampton press, London (2004), p. 52
1870 - 1890

“Since the beginning of time, children have not liked to study. They would much rather play, and if you have their interests at heart, you will let them learn while they play; they will find that what they have mastered is child's play.”

Carl Orff (1895–1982) German composer

As quoted in a review of Langley Schools Music Project : Innocence and Despair (2001) http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/4685-innocence-and-despair/ by Dominique Leone (6 January 2002)

Children, Learning, Time, Heart

“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in search thereof when he is grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more.”

Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers

122, in Moral Exhortation (1986), p. 33
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 10: Epicurus

Wisdom, Happiness, Health, Age

“[This] science is the work of the human mind, which is destined rather to study than to know, to seek the truth rather than to find it.”

Évariste Galois (1811–1832) French mathematician, founder of group theory

Of mathematics — as quoted in Mathematics: The Loss of Certainty (1980) by Morris Kline, p. 99.

Truth, Science

“We know a history so that we can learn from it. We learn our history because we understand the sacrifices that were made before, so that when we make sacrifices we understand we're doing it on behalf of future generations. There’s a proverb that says, “We have not inherited this land from our forebears, we have borrowed it from our children.” In other words, we study the past so it can guide us into the future, and inspire us to do better.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)

Children, History, Understanding, Learning

“Do not say "When I free myself of my concerns, I will study," for perhaps you will never free yourself.Do not say: "When I am free, I will study"; perhaps you will never be free.”

Hillel the Elder (-112–9 BC) Mishnah rabbi

2:4
Pirkei Avot

“I quit high school really young, and I always loved information. I'm a self-taught kind of chick. I don't have any tactics on studying, memorizing things. It's selective memory. If I feel like it's going to be a prominent factor in the future, then I will remember that.”

Michelle Rodriguez (1978) American actress, screenwriter and DJ

CinemaBlendInterview: Michelle Rodriguez Talks Technology And Aliens In Battle: Los Angeles 11 March 2011 http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Interview-Michelle-Rodriguez-Talks-Technology-And-Aliens-In-Battle-Los-Angeles-23609.html

Love, School, Feeling, Memory

“Philosophy stands in the same relation to the study of the actual world as masturbation to sexual love.”

Karl Marx book The German Ideology

Source: The German Ideology (1845/46), International Publishers, ed. Chris Arthur, p. 103.

Love, World

“In Marx the dialectical method aims at understanding society as a whole. Bourgeois thought concerns itself with objects that arise either from the process of studying phenomena in isolation, or from the division of labor and specialisation in the different disciplines.”

György Lukács book History and Class Consciousness

Source: History and Class Consciousness (1968), p. 28

Understanding

“As men, we have God for our King, and are under the law of reason: as Christians, we have Jesus the Messiah for our King, and are under the law revealed by him in the gospel. And though every Christian, both as a deist and a Christian, be obliged to study both the law of nature and the revealed law, that in them he may know the will of God, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent; yet, in neither of these laws, is there to be found a select set of fundamentals, distinct from the rest, which are to make him a deist, or a Christian. But he that believes one eternal, invisible God, his Lord and King, ceases thereby to be an atheist; and he that believes Jesus to be the Messiah, his king, ordained by God, thereby becomes a Christian, is delivered from the power of darkness, and is translated into the kingdom of the Son of God; is actually within the covenant of grace, and has that faith, which shall be imputed to him for righteousness; and, if he continues in his allegiance to this his King, shall receive the reward: eternal life.”

John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician

§ 228
The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695)

Life, Men, God, Faith

“To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

Personal correspondence (1839), as quoted in Dostoevsky: His Life and Work (1971) by Konstantin Mochulski, as translated by Michael A. Minihan, p. 17
Context: To study the meaning of man and of life — I am making significant progress here. I have faith in myself. Man is a mystery: if you spend your entire life trying to puzzle it out, then do not say that you have wasted your time. I occupy myself with this mystery, because I want to be a man.

Life, Faith

“I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior.”

Jane Goodall (1934) British primatologist, ethologist, and anthropologist

Frans de Waal, in a NOVA interview, " The Bonobo in All of Us" PBS (1 January 2007) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/nature/bonobo-all-us.html; quotes from this interview were for some time misplaced on this page, which probably generated similar misattributions elsewhere, and the misplacement was not discovered until after this quotation had been selected for Quote of the Day, as a quote of Goodall. Corrections were subsequently made here, during the day the quote was posted as QOTD. Misattributed Context: I think if we study the primates, we notice that a lot of these things that we value in ourselves, such as human morality, have a connection with primate behavior. This completely changes the perspective, if you start thinking that actually we tap into our biological resources to become moral beings. That gives a completely different view of ourselves than this nasty selfish-gene type view that has been promoted for the last 25 years.

Behavior, Thinking

“I don't know the names of any pop musicians. Pop music is standardised; it's made to please the largest audience possible. I also compose to please a large audience, but when you listen to my music, you understand that I have studied and applied the whole history of composition.”

Ennio Morricone (1928–2020) Italian composer, orchestrator and conductor

Music, History, Understanding

“In college the professor gives you an assignment, you study and are given a test to determine what you have learned. In life, you are first tested and then you learn.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1983

Life, Learning

“Those who listened to the teachings of Socrates became the best philosophers. But those who studied under Plato, relied more on the rhetorical path and therefore, the greatest opportunists.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

“It just happened. I like to sing, and well, I just started singing and folks just started listening. I can't tell folks that I worked and learned and studied, and overcame disappointments, because I didn't.”

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) American singer and actor

Source: Pop Chronicles, Show 7 – The All American Boy: Enter Elvis and the rock-a-billies. Part 1 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19754/m1/; C. Robert Jennings, " Elvis Lives! http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/doc/155809300.html?FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=Feb+18%2C+1968&author=Jennings%2C+C+Robert&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+%281923-Current+File%29&edition=&startpage=M28&desc=ELVIS+LIVES%21", 1968-Feb-18, L.A. Times Magazine, p. M28.

Disappointment, Learning, Singing

“As every divided kingdom falls, so every mind divided between many studies confounds and saps itself.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

“No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly," His Highness replied, "…and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.”

Murasaki Shikibu book The Tale of Genji

Source: Tale of Genji, Ch. 17: Eawase (trans. Royall Tyler)
Source: The Tale of Genji

Art, Effort, Learning

“And though you study medicine for a score of lifetimes, there will come to you people whose illnesses are mysteries, for the anguish of which you speak is part and parcel of the profession of healing and must be lived with.”

Noah Gordon book The Physician

Source: The Physician

People, Parting

“A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.”

Leonard Ravenhill (1907–1994) British writer

God, Soul, Knowledge

“What though the field be lost?
All is not Lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And the courage never to submit or yeild.”

John Milton book Paradise Lost

Variant: All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.
Source: Paradise Lost

Hate, Courage, Revenge

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”

Bertrand Russell book A History of Western Philosophy

Source: A History of Western Philosophy

Age

“We should treat all the trivial things of life seriously, and all the serious things of life with sincere and studied triviality.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Life, Sincerity

“Studies have shown that an ant can carry one hundred times its own weight, but there is no known limit to the lifting power of the average tiny eighty-year-old Spanish peasant grandmother.”

Terry Pratchett book Reaper Man

Source: Reaper Man

Time

“To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person.”

Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker

Personality

“You study, you learn, but you guard the original naiveté. It has to be within you, as desire for drink is within the drunkard or love is within the lover.”

Henri Matisse (1869–1954) French artist

In 'Time' magazine (26 June 1950)
1950s

Love, Lovers, Drink, Learning

“I'm a slow reader, but I usually get through seventy or eighty books a year, most fiction. I don't read in order to study the craft; I read because I like to read”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Source: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

Books, Reading

“She had studied the universe all her life, but had overlooked its clearest message: For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact

Love, Life, Universe

“I tell them that if they will occupy themselves with the study of mathematics they will find in it the best remedy against the lusts of the flesh.”

Thomas Mann (1875–1955) German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate

Mathematics

“Find the story, Granny Weatherwax always said. She believed that the world was full of story shapes. If you let them, they controlled you. But if you studied them, if you found out about them… you could use them, you could change them.”

Terry Pratchett book Witches Abroad

Source: Witches Abroad

World, Change

“I have been studying the traits and dispositions of the "lower animals" (so called) and contrasting them with the traits and dispositions of man. I find the result humiliating to me.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

Animals

“The studying, the books, exams, arguments, theories. The jokes and pints, laughter, kisses and songs. Life was like running, ninety percent sweat and toil, ten per cent joy.”

Siobhan Dowd book Bog Child

Source: Bog Child

Life, Books, Kiss, Laughter

“Please, not again what you studied, how long you spent at it, how many books you wrote, what people thought of you - but: what did you learn?”

Idries Shah book Reflections

Source: Reflections

People, Books, Learning

“Since a time has come, Mademoiselle, when the severe laws of men no longer prevent women from applying themselves to the sciences and other disciplines, it seems to me that those of us who can should use this long-craved freedom to study and to let men see how greatly they wronged us when depriving us of its honor and advantages. And if any woman becomes so proficient as to be able to write down her thoughts, let her do so and not despise the honor, but rather flaunt it instead of fine clothes, necklaces, and rings. For these may be considered ours only by use, whereas the honor of being educated is ours entirely.”

Louise Labé (1524–1566) female French poet of the Renaissance, born in Lyon

Women, Men, Education, Law

“Maybe it was the same with people: if you studied them, you'd see new and different things. But would you like what you saw? Did it depend on who was doing the looking?”

Sharon Creech book Chasing Redbird

Source: Chasing Redbird

People, Dependency

“It is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them.”

Aldo Leopold book A Sand County Almanac

“April: Sky Dance”, p. 32-33.
A Sand County Almanac, 1949, "April: Come High Water," "April: Draba," "April: Bur Oak," & "April:Sky Dance"
Source: A Sand County Almanac and Sketches Here and There

Learning

“When reading a book, be very certain that you never go past a word you do not fully understand. The only reason a person gives up a study or becomes confused or unable to learn is because he or she has gone past a word that was not understood.”

L. Ron Hubbard (1911–1986) American science fiction author, philosopher, cult leader, and the founder of the Church of Scientology

Books, Understanding, Learning, Reading

“A study in the Washington Post says that women have
better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the
authors of that study: 'Duh.”

Conan O'Brien (1963) American television show host and comedian

Women, Men, Funny

“The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.”

Iris Murdoch (1919–1999) British writer and philosopher

Education, Literature, Understanding

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses- especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

Art, Sense, Learning, Science

“My intention was to give a general outline, to sketch a general division and, as it were, a provisional plan of a domain that has not been studied so far and which should be the result of work for many generations of linguists. The reader is therefore requested to consider this book a simple introduction to the science which I propose to call semantics.”

Michel Bréal (1832–1915) French philologist

Source: Essai de semantique, 1897, p. 9 ; as cited in: Schaff (1962:3).

Books, Science

“And rising inequality and declining mobility are also bad for our families and social cohesion -- not just because we tend to trust our institutions less, but studies show we actually tend to trust each other less when there’s greater inequality. And greater inequality is associated with less mobility between generations. That means it’s not just temporary; the effects last. It creates a vicious cycle. For example, by the time she turns three years old, a child born into a low-income home hears 30 million fewer words than a child from a well-off family, which means by the time she starts school she’s already behind, and that deficit can compound itself over time.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Remarks on Economic Mobility (December 2013)

School, Family, Home, Time

“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

http://books.google.com/books?id=lFXyZLM1XxYC&pg=PT412&dq=%22Just+as+eating+against+one%E2%80%99s+will+is+injurious+to+health%22&hl=en&ei=GFRbTIjiGoL-8AbytdC4Ag&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CDUQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22Just%20as%20eating%20against%20one%E2%80%99s%20will%20is%20injurious%20to%20health%22&f=false
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

Health, Memory

“The genius continually discovers fate, and the more profound the genius, the more profound the discovery of fate. To spiritlessness, this is naturally foolishness, but in actuality it is greatness, because no man is born with the idea of providence, and those who think that one acquires it gradually though education are greatly mistaken, although I do not thereby deny the significance of education. Not until sin is reached is providence posited. Therefore the genius has an enormous struggle to reach providence. If he does not reach it, truly he becomes a subject for the study of fate. The genius is an omnipotent Ansich [in itself] which as such would rock the whole world. For the sake of order, another figure appears along with him, namely fate. Fate is nothing. It is the genius himself who discovers it, and the more profound the genius, the more profoundly he discovers fate, because that figure is merely the anticipation of providence. If he continues to be merely a genius and turns outward, he will accomplish astonishing things; nevertheless, he will always succumb to fate, if not outwardly, so that it is tangible and visible to all, then inwardly. Therefore, a genius-existence is always like a fairy tale if in the deepest sense the genius does not turn inward into himself. The genius is able to do all things, and yet he is dependent upon an insignificance that no one comprehends, an insignificance upon which the genius himself by his omnipotence bestows omnipotent significance. Therefore, a second lieutenant, if he is a genius, is able to become an emperor and change the world, so that there becomes one empire and one emperor. But therefore, too, the army may be drawn up for battle, the conditions for the battle absolutely favorable, and yet in the next moment wasted; a kingdom of heroes may plead that the order for battle be given-but he cannot; he must wait for the fourteenth of June. And why? Because that was the date of the battle of Marengo. So all things may be in readiness, he himself stands before the legions, waiting only for the sun to rise in order to announce the time for the oration that will electrify the soldiers, and the sun may rise more glorious than ever, an inspiring and inflaming sight for all, only not for him, because the sun did not rise as glorious as this at Austerlitz, and only the sun of Austerlitz gives victory and inspiration. Thus, the inexplicable passion with which such a one may often rage against an entirely insignificant man, when otherwise he may show humanity and kindness even toward his enemies. Yes, woe unto the man, woe unto the woman, woe unto the innocent child, woe unto the beast of the field, woe unto the bird whose flight, woe unto the tree whose branch comes in his way at the moment he is to interpret his omen.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Søren Kierkegaard The Concept of Anxiety, Nichol p. 98-100 (1844)
About

Fate, World, Education, Way

“Can one understand politics without understanding history, especially the history of political thought, and will this distinguish political philosophy from some other kinds of philosophy (such as, perhaps, logic) to which the study of history is not integral?”

Raymond Geuss book Philosophy and Real Politics

Source: Philosophy and Real Politics (2008), p. 38.

History, Understanding

“The changeover was complete; in the summer of 1907 I devoted myself entirely to the appearance of nature and upon these studies built my black-and-white landscapes on glass, 1907/1908.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1908), # 831, in The Diaries of Paul Klee; University of California Press, 1964; as quoted by Francesco Mazzaferro, in 'The Diaries of Paul Klee - Part Three' : Klee as a Secessionist and a Neo-Impressionist Artist http://letteraturaartistica.blogspot.nl/2015/05/paul-klee-ev.html 1903 - 1910

Nature, Appearance, Summer

“The arrival of the Nazi sniper set us a new task. We had to find him, study habits and methods, and patiently await the moment for one, and only one, well-aimed shot.”

Vasily Zaytsev (1915–1991) Soviet sniper

Quoted in "The Sniper at War: From the American Revolutionary War to the Present Day" - Page 67 - by Michael E. Haskew - History - 2005.

“Once centenarian teacher who had the body of an adolescent told me he had studied martial arts. "Me, too," I answered. We were in Notre Dame, and he said, "Attack me." I put myself in a combat position, and he moved his left hand in such an incredibly beautiful way that while I looked at it, fascinated, he gave me a big slap. "Beauty is the most dangerous weapon," he warned. It took me a long time to understand. He used a secret Chinese practice, which consists of drawing a snake in the air with your hand to distract the enemy. And that is how beauty is: the most awful weapon.”

Alejandro Jodorowsky (1929) Filmmaker and comics writer

Psychomagic: The Transformative Power of Shamanic Psychotherapy (2010)

Secret, Beauty, Art, Way

“Integral geometry, started by the English geometer M. W. Crofton, has received recently important developments through the works of W. Blaschke, L. A. Santaló, and others. Generally speaking, its principal aim is to study the relations between the measures which can be attached to a given variety.”

Shiing-Shen Chern (1911–2004) mathematician (1911–2004), born in China and later acquiring U.S. citizenship; made fundamental contributio…

[Differential geometry and integral geometry, Proc. Int. Congr. Math. Edinburgh, 1958, 411–449, http://www.mathunion.org/ICM/ICM1958/Main/icm1958.0441.0453.ocr.pdf]

“No language is justly studied merely as an aid to other purposes. It will in fact better serve other purposes, philological or historical, when it is studied for love, for itself.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

English and Welsh (1955)

Love

“Studying oneself is not the most comfortable of enterprises. One is caught between the desire to show oneself in the best possible light and the fear of claiming more than one’s due.”

Kenneth Arrow (1921–2017) American economist

in Lives of the Literature, edited by William Breit and ‎Barry T. Hirsch
1970s-1980s

Fear, Light

“We are forced to respect the gifts of nature, which study and fortune cannot give.”

Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues (1715–1747) French writer, a moralist

Source: Reflections and Maxims (1746), p. 180.

Nature

“Study for a bust of Mr Erik Satie painted by himself, with a thought: I came into the world very young in an age that was very old.”

Erik Satie (1866–1925) French composer and pianist

Étude pour un buste de M. Erik SATIE peint par lui-même, avec une pensée: je suis venu au monde très jeune dans un temps très vieux.
Written to accompany a self-portrait caricature drawn by himself - see image
General quotes

Age, World, Painting

“We will encourage more Americans to study in Muslim communities.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2009, A New Beginning (June 2009)

Communication

“Just study Buddhism. Don't follow the sentiments of the world.”

Dogen (1200–1253) Japanese Zen buddhist teacher

V, 9
Shobogenzo Zuimonki (1238)

World