“I never learned from a man who agreed with me.”

As quoted in The Story of Civilization : The Age of Reason Begins, 1558-1648 (1935) by Will Durant, p. 605
Attributed

1990s, I Am a Man, a Black Man, an American (1998)
Context: I agree with Ralph Ellison when he asked, perhaps rhetorically, why is it that so many of those who would tell us the meaning of Negro, of Negro life, never bothered to learn how varied it really is. That is particularly true of many whites who have elevated condescension to an art form by advancing a monolithic view of blacks in much the same way that the mythic, disgusting image of the lazy, dumb black was advanced by open, rather than disguised, bigots.

"Education and The Working Man"
Blue Walls and The Big Sky (1995)
Context: Eating education is like eating Christmas pudding: Too much can make your stomach sore, too much can spoil your whole Christmas. Learning from a man who learned all he learned from another, can lead you to a safe place, but destroy your sense of wonder. Trapped inside a book, locked inside a lecture, when do you find the time to love and spend your days in forests? And when ideals are fleeting — tell me then who do you turn to? They prove to you that God is dead, but to them you’re just a number.

Source: Things Fall Apart

Source: Celebrating Silence: Excerpts from Five Years of Weekly Knowledge 1995-2000

Part 3, 1974 - 1979 Victory And Defeat, p. 216
Memoirs (1993)

Source: Works and Days and Theogony