“It is difficult, if not impossible, for most people to think otherwise than in the fashion of their own period.”

— George Bernard Shaw , Saint Joan

Preface http://books.google.com/books?id=T70Ahd88jSMC&q=%22It+is+difficult+if+not+impossible+for+most+people+to+think+otherwise+than+in+the+fashion+of+their+own+period%22&pg=PA46#v=onepage to Saint Joan: A Chronicle Play In Six Scenes And An Epilogue (1923)
1920s

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George Bernard Shaw 413

Irish playwright 1856–1950

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Context: During the late sixties I had a chance to give a dozen addresses to people who were concerned with education and schooling. I asked myself, since when are people born needy? In need, for instance, of education? Since when do we have to learn the language we speak by being taught by somebody? I wanted to find out where the idea came from that all over the world people have to be assembled in specific groups of not less than fifteen, otherwise it's not a class, not more than forty, otherwise they are underprivileged, for yearly, not less than 800 hours, otherwise they don't get enough, not more than 1,100 hours, otherwise it's considered a prison, for four-year periods by somebody else who has undergone this for a longer time. How did it come about that such a crazy process like schooling would become necessary? Then I realized that it was something like engineering people, that our society doesn't only produce artifact things, but artifact people. And that it doesn't do that by the content of the curriculum, but by getting them through this ritual which makes them believe that learning happens as a result of being taught; that learning can be divided into separate tasks; that learning can be measured and pieces can be added one to the other; that learning provides value for the objects which then sell in the market.
And it's true. The more expensive the schooling of a person, the more money he will make in the course of his life. This in spite of the certainty, from a social science point of view, that there's absolutely no relationship between the curriculum content and what people actually do satisfactorily for themselves or society in life.

“Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.”

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Source: The Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“Beauty is composed of an eternal, invariable element whose quantity is extremely difficult to determine, and a relative element which might be, either by turns or all at once, period, fashion, moral, passion.”

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Source:"Defence and Illustration of Classical Construction," Cahiers du Cinéma (Paris, Sept. 15, 1952).
Cited in: Fayek S. Hourani, Daily Bread for Your Mind and Soul: A Handbook of Transcultural Proverb and Sayings https://books.google.nl/books?id=ASN8DVH2AgYC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22Beauty+is+composed+of+an+eternal,+invariable+element+whose+quantity+is+extremely+difficult+to+determine%22&source=bl&ots=JwrnY2eVbL&sig=1XbUReB25BMZsF5sXNTPqHqhwJU&hl=nl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMjZS2rJ_LAhUqGZoKHfIWBvMQ6AEIOzAE#v=onepage&q=%22Beauty%20is%20composed%20of%20an%20eternal%2C%20invariable%20element%20whose%20quantity%20is%20extremely%20difficult%20to%20determine%22&f=false, 2012, p. 169

“If you want to influence him at all, you must do more than merely talk to him; you must fashion him, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than you wish him to will.”

Johann Gottlieb Fichte book Address to the German Nation

Addresses to the German Nation (1807), Second Address : "The General Nature of the New Education". Chicago and London, The Open Court Publishing Company, 1922, p. 21
Paraphrased variant: The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will.