Quotes about studying
page 28

Warren Farrell photo

“Exercise helps build the muscle of a child’s brain even more effectively than studying.”

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

Source: The Boy Crisis (2018), pp. 94

Woodrow Wilson photo
Wesley Clark photo
Edmund Burke photo
Edmund Burke photo

“It is not calling the landed estates, possessed by old prescriptive rights, the 'accumulations of ignorance and superstition', that can support me in shaking that grand title, which supersedes all other title, and which all my studies of general jurisprudence have taught me to consider as one principal cause of the formation of states; I mean the ascertaining and securing prescription. But these are donations made in 'ages of ignorance and superstition.'”

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman

Be it so. It proves that these donations were made long ago; and this is prescription; and this gives right and title.
Letter to Captain Thomas Mercer (26 February 1790), quoted in Alfred Cobban and Robert A. Smith (eds.), The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Volume VI: July 1789–December 1791 (1967), p. 95
1790s

Lila Downs photo

“When I was in college, I wanted to know more about my Native American past because I come from one of the 64 Native groups that are very much alive [in Mexico]. But there was nothing like that. So I ended up designing my own major that included women’s studies, philosophy, and anthropology.”

Lila Downs (1968) Mexican American singer-songwriter

On shaping her higher education in order to learn more about her heritage in “Lila Downs Reminds Us of the Strength Women Bring to Latin America and its History” https://sheshredsmag.com/lila-downs-14/ in She Shreds (2018 May 3)
Heritage and indigenous peoples

Alice A. Bailey photo
Alice A. Bailey photo

“Dharma means duty, or obligation, and it is your definite and specific obligation to develop the intuition. The means or methods whereby this development is to be brought about, can be by the study of symbols.”

Alice A. Bailey (1880–1949) esoteric, theosophist, writer

Source: Glamour: A World Problem (1950), Certain Preliminary Clarifications

Niccolo Machiavelli photo
Prosanta Chakrabarty photo
Annie Besant photo

“There is a Path which leads to that which is known as Initiation, and through Initiation to the Perfecting of Man; a Path which is recognized in all the great religions, and the chief features of which are described in similar terms in every one of the great faiths of the world. You may read of it in the Roman Catholic teachings as divided into three parts: (1) The Path of Purification or Purgation; (2) the Path of Illumination; and (3) the Path of Union with Divinity. You find it among the Mussulmans in the Sufi — the mystic — teachings of Islam, where it is known under the names of the Way, the Truth and the Life. You find it further eastward still in the great faith of Buddhism, divided into subdivisions, though these can be classified under the broader outline. It is similarly divided in Hinduism; for in both those great religions, in which the study of psychology, of the human mind and the human constitution, has played so great a part, you find a more definite subdivision. But really it matters not to which faith you turn; it matters not which particular set of names you choose as best attracting or expressing your own ideas; the Path is but one; its divisions are always the same; from time immemorial that Path has stretched from the life of the world to the life of the Divine.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Initiation, The Perfecting of Man (1923)

Annie Besant photo
Annie Besant photo

“A man who is a spiritual man--a religious teacher--regards the universe from the standpoint of the Spirit from which everything is seen as coming from the One. When he stands, as it were, in the centre, and he looks from the centre to the circumference, he stands at the point whence the force proceeds, and he judges of the force from that point of radiation and he sees it as one in its multitudinous workings, and knows the force is One; he sees it in its many divergencies, and he recognises it as one and the same thing throughout. Standing in the centre, in the Spirit, and looking outwards to the universe, he judges everything from the standpoint of the Divine Unity and sees every separate phenomenon, not as separate from the One but as the external expression of the one and the only Life. But science looks at the thing from the surface. It goes to the circumference of the universe and it sees a multiplicity of phenomena. It studies these separated things and studies them one by one. It takes up a manifestation and judges it; it judges it apart; it looks at the many, not at the One; it looks at the diversity, not at the Unity, and sees everything from outside and not from within: it sees the external difference and the superficial portion while it sees not the One from which every thing proceeds.”

Annie Besant (1847–1933) British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator

Source: Essays and Addresses, Vol. III- Evolution and Occultism (1913)

Paul Offit photo
Frank Wilczek photo
Alicia Garza photo
Stephen Wolfram photo

“If you think about things that happen, as being computations... a computation in the sense that it has definite rules... You follow them many steps and you get some result. ...If you look at all these different computations that can happen, whether... in the natural world... in our brains... in our mathematics, whatever else, the big question is how do these computations compare. ...Are there dumb ...and smart computations, or are they somehow all equivalent? ...[T]he thing that I ...was ...surprised to realize from ...experiments ...in the early 90s, and now we have tons more evidence for ...[is] this ...principle of computational equivalence, which basically says that when one of these computations ...doesn't seem like it's doing something obviously simple, then it has reached this ...equivalent layer of computational sophistication of everything. So what does that mean? ...You might say that ...I'm studying this tiny little program ...and my brain is surely much smarter ...I'm going to be able to systematically outrun [it] because I have a more sophisticated computation ...but ...the principle ...says ...that doesn't work. Our brains are doing computations that are exactly equivalent to the kinds of computations that are being done in all these other sorts of systems. ...It means that we can't systematically outrun these systems. These systems are computationally irreducible in the sense that there's no ...shortcut ...that jumps to the answer.”

Stephen Wolfram (1959) British-American computer scientist, mathematician, physicist, writer and businessman

Stephen Wolfram: Fundamental Theory of Physics, Life, and the Universe (Sep 15, 2020)

James Thomson (B.V.) photo

“I was in school studying civil engineering. A guy approached me on the street and said that I had a interesting look-very exotic. He told me I should try to be in the industry.”

Thuy Trang (1973–2001) Vietnamese actress (1973-2001)

Power Rangers Unlimited: Thuy Trang Interview https://myriahac.tripod.com/id8.html (December 24, 1994)

Ferdinand Foch photo

“The truth is, no study is possible on the battle-field; one does there simply what one can in order to apply what one knows.”

Ferdinand Foch (1851–1929) French soldier and military theorist

Therefore, in order to do even a little, one has already to know a great deal and to know it well.
Source: Precepts and Judgments (1919), p. 175

Winona LaDuke photo

“If, after proper study, a verse does not clearly convey the circumstances and/or the emotion involved, it is not a haiku.”

Harold Gould Henderson (1889–1974) American art historian

Haiku in English'. Charles E. Tuttle 1967

Elizabeth Blackwell photo

“It was at this time that the suggestion of studying medicine was first presented to me, by a lady friend. This friend finally died of a painful disease, the delicate nature of which made the methods of treatment a constant suffering to her. She once said to me,'You are fond of study, have health and leisure; why not study medicine? If I could have been treated by a lady doctor, my worst sufferings would have been spared me.'”

Elizabeth Blackwell (1821–1910) England-born American physician, abolitionist, women's rights activist

But I at once repudiated the suggestion as an impossible one, saying that I hated everything connected with the body, and could not bear the sight of a medical book.
... My favourite studies were history and metaphysics, and the very thought of dwelling on the physical structure of the body and its various ailments filled me with disgust.
pp. 27–28 https://books.google.com/books?id=GHkIAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA27
Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women (1895)

Chris Walas photo

“Technically, it’s about getting the basic forms and proportions right for your goal. It’s NOT about details. Details are easy and definitely keep designs alive onscreen, but if the basic forms are not natural, believable and convincing, no amount of details is going to make much difference. And when in doubt, study Mother Nature.”

Chris Walas (1955) American special effects artist and film director

TALKING WITH CREATURE EFFECTS LEGEND CHRIS WALAS…OR AS I KNOW HIM, UNCLE CHRIS https://www.starwars.com/news/talking-with-creature-effects-legend-chris-walas-or-as-i-know-him-uncle-chris (March 1, 2016)

Robert M. Pirsig photo

“A study of the art of motorcycle maintenance is really a miniature study of the art of rationality itself.”

Source: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/books/robert-pirsig-dead-wrote-zen-and-the-art-of-motorcycle-maintenance.html

Michelle Obama photo
Epictetus photo

“You need to study history, Doctor. All great changes are based on pain and destruction.”

Source: Fourth Realm Trilogy (2005-2009), The Traveler (2005), Ch. 35

Isaac Asimov photo

“An observer studying the Solar system dispassionately, and finding himself capable of bringing the four giant planets to his notice, could reasonably say that the Solar system consisted of one star, four planets, and some traces of debris.”

Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, known for his works of science fiction …

"Worlds In Order" in The Secret of the Universe (1992), p. 63
General sources

Prevale photo

“Creativity can not be bought, studied, learned or possessed.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La creatività non si compra, non si studia, né si impara, si possiede.
Source: prevale.net

John Steinbeck photo

“Music is of such power and glory that we should be ready to devote to its study as much time as to a foreign language.”

Walter Raymond Spalding (1865–1962) American music pedagogue and author

Music: An Art and a Language (1920), Preface

John Grisham photo
Tony Leung photo

“Once I'm committed to a role, I will go very deep into it, even when I'm not at work. I'll keep on studying the script, maybe 40 or 50 times. I might call a scriptwriter at three in the morning to say I've thought of something new.”

Tony Leung (1962) Hong Kong actor

"'It never gets any easier'" in The Guardian (23 February 2004) https://www.theguardian.com/film/2004/feb/23/1

Lee Arenberg photo
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya photo

“I think that people have put too much responsibility on me. People are forgetting that a year ago I was just a mother, not at all involved in politics. I have had to study a lot and I’m trying to do what I can, where I am … But the responsibility isn’t just on me, it’s on all Belarusians.”

Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (1982) Belarusian politician and educator

"Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya: ‘Belarusians weren’t ready for this level of cruelty’" in The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/09/sviatlana-tsikhanouskaya-belarusians-not-ready-cruelty-lukashenko-belarus (9 August 2021)

Charles Duke photo

“I like to participate in these kinds of things, so hopefully, we can change one life to motivate a kid to stimulate them to study in science and engineering.”

Charles Duke (1935) American engineer, U.S. Air Force officer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut

Apollo Astronaut Shares Recollections 45 Years After Moon Landing (Exclusive Interview) https://www.space.com/37115-charlie-duke-apollo-16-exclusive-interview.html (June 7, 2017)

Joseph Kasa-Vubu photo

“I wanted to study the enemy on his home grounds.”

Joseph Kasa-Vubu (1910–1969) President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (1910-1969)

The new leaders of Africa https://archive.org/details/newleadersofafri0000unse/page/150/mode/2up Rolf Italiaander, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall 1690, p 147. Kasa-Vubu explains why in 1942 Leopoldville, he became a clerk at the Belgian financial administration.

Matt Ridley photo

“No study of the causes of intelligence has failed to find a substantial heritability.”

Source: Genome (1999), Chapter 6 “Intelligence” (p. 82)

Samuel Johnson photo

“[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

The Rambler, No. 150 (Sat 24 Aug 1751). http://www.yalejohnson.com/frontend/sda_viewer?n=106855 See also The Yale Book of Quotations, Samuel Johnson 3 (2006)

Alfred Marshall photo

“The study of social setting does not imply either the irrelevance or nonexistence of a factual world out there.”

Source: An Urchin in the Storm (1987) "The Power of Narrative", p. 84

Jiang Qing photo

“Prior to studies of unusually intelligent people that showed them to be generally much better adapted and happier than others, the popular belief in the United States was that exceptional intelligence was often associated with exceptional ability to “drive yourself nuts.””

Robyn Dawes (1936–2010) American psychologist

Hence, people believed that genius and lunacy were intimately connected. Perhaps, nearly all of us “drive ourselves a little nuts” by virtue of creating stories that lead us to the illusion that we understand history, other people, causality, and life—when we don’t.
Source: Everyday Irrationality: How Pseudo-Scientists, Lunatics, and the Rest of Us Systematically Fail to Think Rationally (2001), Chapter 7, “Good Stories” (p. 125)

“Changing animals by putting human genes or cells into their structure is one way of making them more resemble the bit of the human condition you're interested in studying.”

Martin Bobrow (1938) geneticist

Source: As quoted in Medical research warning over human cells in animals https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/jul/22/medical-research-humans-animals-regulation by Alok Jha, 22 July 2011, The Guardian.

Liu Shaoqi photo

“We Communists must not separate our study of theory from our ideological self-cultivation. We must remould ourselves and temper our proletarian ideology not only in the practice of revolution but in the study of Marxism-Leninism.”

Liu Shaoqi (1898–1969) 2nd President of the People's Republic of China (1898-1969)

Source: "How to Be a Good Communist - 4. The Unity of Theoretical Study and Ideological Self-Cultivation" https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/liu-shaoqi/1939/how-to-be/ch04.htm (July 1939)

Liu Wen (model) photo

“I was studying tourism at college and wanted to travel the world as a tour guide – that was my dream! But actually sometimes modeling feels quite similar, because I travel so much – probably even more than tour guiding.”

Liu Wen (model) (1988) Chinese model

Source: "Liu Wen Talks Style, Diversity And What It Means To Be China’s First Supermodel" in Marie Claire https://www.marieclaire.co.uk/news/fashion-news/liu-wen-interview-china-s-first-supermodel-talks-style-diversity-and-her-mango-campaign-15375 (3 March 2016)

Cheng Yen photo

“To study Buddhism under me is to adopt a new way of life.”

Cheng Yen (1937) Taiwanese Buddhist nun

Source: Master of Love and Mercy: Cheng Yen, p. 20

Stephanie Okereke Linus photo
Helena Petrovna Blavatsky photo
Isaac Asimov photo
Syngman Rhee photo

“When possible, children should be comfortable and free when they are playing or studying, and it is the way in a civilized country to make them more comfortable by not being too strict and giving grace and love at the same time.”

Syngman Rhee (1875–1965) first president of South Korea (1875-1965)

Source: Speech at the first anniversary of the founding of Seoul Board of Education (2 October 1957)

Pierre Sonnerat photo

“Ancient India gave to to the world its religions and philosophies: Egypt and Greece owe India their wisdom and it is known that Pythagoras went to India to study under Brahmins, who were the most enlightened of human beings.”

Pierre Sonnerat (1748–1814) French botanist (1748-1814)

Source: quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture https://books.google.com/books/about/A_Tribute_to_Hinduism.html?id=G3AMAQAAMAAJ

Henri Alexis Brialmont photo

“Should it not, this essentially producing country, search all parts of the globe and seek to fight with other nations, by exploring in advance the countries likely to favor industries, by studying local needs and resources, by indicating the nature and time of the shipments to be made, etc.?”

Henri Alexis Brialmont (1821–1903) Belgian military engineer and writer (1821-1903)

Source: All the King's Men' A search for the colonial ideas of some advisers and "accomplices" of Leopold II (1853-1892). (Hannes Vanhauwaert), 5. A prospectus by the military Chazal and Brialmont, The military centipede Henri-Alexis Brialmont (1821-1893) http://www.ethesis.net/leopold_II/leopold_II.htm#2.%20 Brialmont in 1853 On The need for a stronger merchant fleet, protected by a naval force, he was amazed that it still did not exist in Belgium, despite the unbridled economic boom that Belgium had entered in, and that had one of the largest ports in Europe. CROKAERT, P. BRIALMONT, A. Brialmont, Eloge et mémoires, 399.

Chetan Bhagat photo
Mirza Basheer-ud-Din Mahmood Ahmad photo
Laurence Tribe photo
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk photo

“Why after my years of education, after studying the secular civilization and the socialization process, should I decent to the level of common people, I will make them rise to my level, let me not resemble them, they should resemble me!”

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) Turkish army officer, revolutionary, and the first President of Turkey

Diary entry in Karlsbad on 6 July 1918, also quoted in Ataturk: Founder of Modern Turkey, a biographical documentary about Atatürk

Winston S. Churchill photo
Paulo Coelho photo
Alastair Reynolds photo

“All of it is physics, though, whether you are studying starlings or quarks.”

Alastair Reynolds (1966) British novelist and astronomer

A Murmuration (p. 238)
Short fiction, Belladonna Nights and Other Stories (2021)

“The study of religion opens the human capacity for beauty, meaning, and an awareness of something more than ourselves.”

Susan Ashbrook Harvey (1953) Late antique and Byzantine Christian scholar

[Harvey, Susan Ashbrook, 4, Sohn, Justin, Brown-RISD Cornerstone, An Interview With Professor Susan Ashbrook Harvey, Fall 2015, 4, 1, 16, https://viewer.joomag.com/mag/0401098001450315834?feature=archive, 2022-04-30, en-US, https://web.archive.org/web/20220430014121/https://viewer.joomag.com/mag/0401098001450315834?feature=archive, 2022-04-30, live]

“Tennis or finance or engineering or bartending … this ‘simple’ lesson bears repeating. … Study! Study! Study!”

Tom Peters (1942) American writer on business management practices

18 April 2022
Tom Peters Daily, Weekly Quote

Richard Feynman photo

“…study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

Richard Feynman (1918–1988) American theoretical physicist

excerpt from letter to J. M. Szabados (30 November 1965), quoted in "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track The Letters of Richard P. Feynman" (2005) by Michelle Feynman and Carl Feynman, p. 206

Aristotle photo
Frank Lloyd Wright photo
Idegu Ojonugwa Shadrach photo
Vincent Van Gogh photo
Prevale photo

“Nobody observes you and studies you as much as your enemy.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nessuno ti osserva e ti studia tanto quanto il tuo nemico.
Source: prevale.net

Prevale photo

“Communicating is art: you don't study and you don't learn, it's innate and very rare.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Comunicare è arte: non si studia e non si impara, è innata e molto rara.
Source: prevale.net