Muhammad al-Baqir quote: “Learn knowledge and science from him who teaches it, even if he doesn't practice what he preaches.”

“They [America] don't practice what they preach, whereas South Africa preaches and practices the same thing. I have more respect for a man who lets me know where he stands, even if he's wrong, than the one who comes up like an angel and is nothing but a devil.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Oxford Union Debate (3 December 1964)

“A leopard doesn't change his spots just because you bring him in from the jungle and try to housebreak him and turn him into a pet. He may learn to sheathe his claws in order to beg a few scraps off the dinner table, and you may teach him to be a beast of burden, but it doesn't pay to forget that he'll always be what he was born: a wild animal.”

George Lincoln Rockwell (1918–1967) American politician, founder of the American Nazi Party

Interview with Alex Haley

“Thinking that what he saw were men living under the natural law, and that the Lord had sent him to teach them the Divine law, he preached the gospel to them.”

Anatole France book Penguin Island

Book I : The Beginnings, Ch. V : The Baptism Of The Penguins
Penguin Island (1908)
Context: Thinking that what he saw were men living under the natural law, and that the Lord had sent him to teach them the Divine law, he preached the gospel to them.
Mounted on a lofty stone in the midst of the wild circus:
"Inhabitants of this island," said he, "although you be of small stature, you look less like a band of fishermen and mariners than like the senate of a judicious republic. By your gravity, your silence, your tranquil deportment, you form on this wild rock an assembly comparable to the Conscript Fathers at Rome deliberating in the temple of Victory, or rather, to the philosophers of Athens disputing on the benches of the Areopagus. Doubtless you possess neither their science nor their genius, but perhaps in the sight of God you are their superiors. I believe that you are simple and good. As I went round your island I saw no image of murder, no sign of carnage, no enemies' heads or scalps hung from a lofty pole or nailed to the doors of your villages. You appear to me to have no arts and not to work in metals. But your hearts are pure and your hands are innocent, and the truth will easily enter into your souls."
Now what he had taken for men of small stature but of grave bearing were penguins whom the spring had gathered together, and who were ranged in couples on the natural steps of the rock, erect in the majesty of their large white bellies. From moment to moment they moved their winglets like arms, and uttered peaceful cries. They did not fear men, for they did not know them, and had never received any harm from them; and there was in the monk a certain gentleness that reassured the most timid animals and that pleased these penguins extremely.

“That one should practice what one preaches is generally agreed, but anyone who has the indiscretion to preach what both he and his hearers practice must always incur—as Lord Chesterfield has incurred—the gravest moral reprobation.”

Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer

“English Aphorists,” p. 123
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

“I think he who knows himself will know accurately, not the opinion of others about him, but what he is in reality… he ought to discover within himself what is right for him to do and not learn it from without…”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

As quoted in The Works of the Emperor Julian (1923) by Wilmer Cave France Wright, p. 91
General sources

“Studies in painting: Non. He learned to express himself by means of art in the same way as the child learns to talk. No teaching is needed for the one who is born an artist, and even the expression 'self-taught' is a phony, he thinks.”

Max Ernst (1891–1976) German painter, sculptor and graphic artist

Quote in a questionnaire, Max Ernst filled out in 1948, the U.S; as cited in Max Ernst: a Retrospective, ed. Werner Spies & Sabine Rewald, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2005, p. 7
1936 - 1950

“Teach what you know to him who does not know, and learn from him who knows what you do not know. If you would do this you would learn what you have not known and would retain what you have already known.”

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1058–1111) Persian Muslim theologian, jurist, philosopher, and mystic

al-Ghazali https://awakenthegreatnesswithin.com/35-inspirational-imam-al-ghazali-quotes-on-success/

“Shri Babaji shows us the practical side of the teachings of great saints like Guru Nanak, who did not preach a particular religion or cult. He gave teachings of spiritual perfection, valid for all mankind. To follow these teachings is to realize good for all humanity and the unity of all humanity and the unity of the individual soul with the universal Soul.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Shri Shastriji about Haidakhan Babaji, cited in: The Teachings of Babaji, 10 April 1983.

“Shri Babaji shows us the practical side of the teachings of great saints like Guru Nanak, who did not preach a particular religion or cult. He gave teachings of spiritual perfection, valid for all mankind. To follow these teachings is to realize good for all humanity and the unity of all humanity and the unity of the individual soul with the universal Soul.”

Nanak (1469–1539) Founder of Sikhism

Shri Shastriji about Haidakhan Babaji, cited in: The Teachings of Babaji, 10 April 1983.

“Whoever wants to be a leader should educate himself before educating others. Before preaching to others he should first practice himself. Whoever educates himself and improves his own morals is superior to the man who tries to teach and train others.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

“Learn knowledge and science from him who teaches it, even if he doesn't practice what he preaches.”

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Muhammad al-Baqir 30

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