Quotes about teaching
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“"What really is the point of trying to teach anything to anybody?"
This question seemed to provoke a murmur of sympathetic approval from up and down the table.
Richard continued, "What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that's really the essence of programming. By the time you've sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you've learned something about it yourself."”

Douglas Adams book Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987)

Stupidity, Way, Idea, Understanding

“From the far reaches of the Mediterranean Sea to the Indus River, the faithful approached the city of Mecca. All had the same objective to worship together at the most sacred shrine of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca. One such traveler was Mansa Musa, Sultan of Mali in Western Africa. Mansa Musa had prepared carefully for the long journey he and his attendants would take. He was determined to travel not only for his own religious fulfillment, but also for recruiting teachers and leaders, so that his realms could learn more of the Prophet's teachings.”

Musa I of Mali (1280–1337) emperor of the Mali Empire

Chronicle of the Seeker by: Mahmud Kati

Faith, Travel, Learning, Teachers

“To ordain conscience for Heaven and Earth, to secure life and fortune for the people, to continue the lost teachings of past sages, and to establish peace for all future generations.”

Zhang Zai (1020–1077) Chinese philosopher

Complete Works of Master Zhang, "Supplements to Reflections on Things at Hand", as quoted in Wang Chunyong's Famous Chinese Sayings Quoted by Wen Jiabao, trans. Chan Sin-wai (Hong Kong: Chung Hwa Book Co., 2009), p. 10

Life, People, Peace, Past

“If we are to use women for the same things as the men, we must also teach them the same things.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates, as quoted by Bettany Hughes: "Feminism started with the Buddha and Confucius 25 centuries ago" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-life/11785181/Feminism-started-with-the-Buddha-and-Confucius-25-centuries-ago.html. Attributed

Women, Men

“Poverty is a virtue which one can teach oneself.”

Diogenes of Sinope (-404–-322 BC) ancient Greek philosopher, one of the founders of the Cynic philosophy

Stobaeus, iv. 32a. 19
Quoted by Stobaeus

“When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you.”

Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer

Aggression
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: A zealous disciple expressed a desire to teach others the Truth and asked the Master what he thought about this. The Master said, "Wait."
Each year the disciple would return with the same request and each time the Master would give him the same reply: "Wait."
One day he said to the Master, "When will I be ready to teach?"
Said the Master, "When your excessive eagerness to teach has left you."

“Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy.”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

Source: Kodokan Judo (1882), p. 23
Context: Judo teaches us to look for the best possible course of action, whatever the individual circumstances, and helps us to understand that worry is a waste of energy. Paradoxically, the man who has failed and one who is at the peak of success are in exactly the same position. Each must decide what he will do next, choose the course that will lead him to the future. The teachings of judo give each the same potential for success, in the former instance guiding a man out of lethargy and disappointment to a state of vigorous activity.

Understanding, Help

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Quoted in Stanley Kubrick at Look Magazine (2013) by Phillipe Mather, p. 46
Context: I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.

Children, Fear, School, Motivation

“In Randori we teach the pupil to act on the fundamental principles of Judo, no matter how physically inferior his opponent may seem to him, and even if by sheer strength he can easily overcome him”

Kanō Jigorō (1860–1938) Japanese educator and judoka

"Judo: The Japanese Art of Self Defense", as translated in A Complete Guide to Judo : It's Story and Practice (1958) by Robert W. Smith http://www.judoinfo.com/kano2.htm Context: In Randori we teach the pupil to act on the fundamental principles of Judo, no matter how physically inferior his opponent may seem to him, and even if by sheer strength he can easily overcome him; because if he acts contrary to principle his opponent will never be convinced of defeat, no matter what brute strength he may have used.

“No longer able to believe in the Church religion, whose falsehood they had detected, and incapable of accepting true Christian teaching, which denounced their whole manner of life, these rich and powerful people, stranded without any religious conception of life, involuntarily returned to that pagan view of things which places life's meaning in personal enjoyment.”

Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer

What is Art? (1897)
Context: No longer able to believe in the Church religion, whose falsehood they had detected, and incapable of accepting true Christian teaching, which denounced their whole manner of life, these rich and powerful people, stranded without any religious conception of life, involuntarily returned to that pagan view of things which places life's meaning in personal enjoyment. And then among the upper classes what is called the "Renaissance of science and art" took place, which was really not only a denial of every religion, but also an assertion that religion was unnecessary.

Life, People, Religion, Personality

“Dialectics does not deny the syllogism, but teaches us to combine syllogisms in such a way as to bring our understanding closer to the eternally changing reality.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Source: In Defense of Marxism (1942), p. 66
Context: Dialectical thinking is related to vulgar thinking in the same way that a motion picture is related to a still photograph. The motion picture does not outlaw the still photograph but combines a series of them according to the laws of motion. Dialectics does not deny the syllogism, but teaches us to combine syllogisms in such a way as to bring our understanding closer to the eternally changing reality.

Way, Understanding, Reality, Change

“In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.”

Ellen G. White book Christ's Object Lessons

Christ's Object Lessons (1900)
Context: Through the creation we are to become acquainted with the Creator. The book of nature is a great lesson book, which in connection with the Scriptures we are to use in teaching others of His character, and guiding lost sheep back to the fold of God. As the works of God are studied, the Holy Spirit flashes conviction into the mind. It is not the conviction that logical reasoning produces; but unless the mind has become too dark to know God, the eye too dim to see Him, the ear too dull to hear His voice, a deeper meaning is grasped, and the sublime, spiritual truths of the written word are impressed on the heart.
In these lessons direct from nature, there is a simplicity and purity that makes them of the highest value. All need the teaching to be derived from this source. In itself the beauty of nature leads the soul away from sin and worldly attractions, and toward purity, peace, and God.

God, Peace, Beauty, Soul

“Hold all and wait.
The questions that are in one’s mind will be worked out eventually without a word from the Master.
The light becomes stronger and the darkness vanishes in the reorganization of the inner man and his thinking processes and habits.
Do not make the mistake of trying to fit the teachings of ECK into the old ways of thinking.
Drop all and start over again.”

Paul Twitchell (1909–1971) American writer

Way, Question, Thinking, Light

“Three things give the student the possibility of surpassing his teacher: ask a lot of questions, remember the answers, teach.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Question, Teachers

“Let the main object… to seek and to find a method of instruction, by which teachers may teach less, but learners learn more.”

John Amos Comenius (1592–1670) Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer

Learning, Teachers

“My Lords, I and the vast majority of the Jewish community, care deeply about the future of the Palestinians. We want Palestinian children, no less than Israeli children, to have a future of peace, prosperity, freedom and hope. Which is why we oppose those who teach Palestinian children to hate those with whom they will one day have to live; who take money given for humanitarian aid and use it to buy weapons and dig tunnels to take the region back to a dark age of barbarism.”

Jonathan Sacks (1948) British rabbi

Other

Money, Hate, Children, Age

“The ancients considered mechanics in a twofold respect; as rational, which proceeds accurately by demonstration, and practical. To practical mechanics all the manual arts belong, from which mechanics took its name. But as artificers do not work with perfect accuracy, it comes to pass that mechanics is so distinguished from geometry, that what is perfectly accurate is called geometrical; what is less so is called mechanical. But the errors are not in the art, but in the artificers. He that works with less accuracy is an imperfect mechanic: and if any could work with perfect accuracy, he would be the most perfect mechanic of all; for the description of right lines and circles, upon which geometry is founded, belongs to mechanics. Geometry does not teach us to draw these lines, but requires them to be drawn; for it requires that the learner should first be taught to describe these accurately, before he enters upon geometry; then it shows how by these operations problems may be solved.”

Isaac Newton book Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Preface (8 May 1686)
Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687)

Art, Error, Problem, Drawing

“Right from his early days in the Andamans, Vinayak encouraged people to speak in Hindi....Till then, government records were maintained in Urdu, and even Hindi was written in the Persian script. Vinayak strongly advocated the implementation of the Devanagari script as it was the one in which the oldest language of the subcontinent, Sanskrit, was written. During his interactions with local merchants in his capacity as the foreman of oil collections, Vinayak passed this zeal on to them too. Through his influence, a girls’ school that was started in the Andamans began a compulsory teaching of Hindi in the Devanagari script.”

Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (1883–1966) Indian pro-independence activist,lawyer, politician, poet, writer and playwright

Vikram Sampath - Savarkar, Echoes from a Forgotten Past

People, School, Girl

“Life and those who rear us teach lessons that break us. How we reassemble the broken pieces defines what we become.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1974

Life

“What I’m learning is that growth is ugly.

It’s not bubble baths and self-help books that teach you how to love yourself.

It’s fighting, kicking and screaming against the self-doubt that weighs you down.

It’s panicking at the possibility of failure while still moving forward anyway.

It’s slowly peeling out of your skin and feeling the tenderness of a touch without armour.

The process of growth is ugly, but it’s the product that makes it worthwhile.”

Unknown author

“History is Philosophy teaching by examples.”

Thucydides Greek historian and Athenian general

History

“The secret of passing in every subject is to never hate it or hating the teacher who's teaching it. It's the correct time to overcome your fears.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Hate, Secret, Fear, Teachers

“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

Study

“You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the sublime instinct of an ancient people. You must act as if everything depended on your individual efforts. The secret of success is constancy of purpose. Go to your homes, and teach there these truths, which will soon be imprinted on the conscience of the land. Make each man feel how much rests on his own exertions... Act in this spirit, and you will succeed. You will maintain your country in its present position. But you will do more than that, you will deliver to your posterity a land of liberty, of prosperity, of power, and of glory.”

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

Source: Speech to the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations in Crystal Palace, London (24 June 1872), quoted in Selected Speeches of the Late Right Honourable the Earl of Beaconsfield, Volume II, ed. T. E. Kebbel (1882), pp. 534-535

People, Truth, Secret, Feeling

“Reading ideas improves,
reading stories entertains,
reading the news informs,
reading books teaches,
reading the song rhymes”

Josephs Quartzy (1999) Tanzanian actor

Source: Sweetest song I know

Books, Idea, Reading

“I do not think you should get rid of your sin until you have learned what it has to teach you.”

Richard Rohr (1943) American spiritual writer, speaker, teacher, Catholic Franciscan priest

Variant: Do not get rid of your hurts until you have learned all that they have to teach you.
Source: Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Thinking, Learning

“What worries me about religion is that it teaches people to be satisfied with not understanding the world they live in.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Heart Of The Matter: God Under The Microscope | BBC (1996)
Variant: [... ] one of the truly bad effects of religion is that it teaches us that it is a virtue to be satisfied with not understanding.
Source: The God Delusion

People, World, Religion, Understanding

“The aim of a college education is to teach you to know a good man when you see one.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Education, For Men

“it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others. This perspective is at the heart of Buddhist teachings.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Happiness, Heart

“There is little point in teaching anything backwards. The whole object of life, Headmistress, is to go forwards.”

Roald Dahl book Matilda

Source: Matilda

Life

“Every book teaches a lesson, even if the lesson is only that one has chosen the wrong book.”

Mason Cooley (1927–2002) American academic

Books

“The struggle of life is one of our greatest blessings. It makes us patient, sensitive, and Godlike. It teaches us that although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.”

Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist

Life, World, Suffering

“Once you teach people to say what they do not understand, it is easy enough to get them to say anything you like.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: Emile or On Education

People, Understanding

“Why do they always teach us that it's easy and evil to do what we want and that we need discipline to restrain ourselves? It's the hardest thing in the world--to do what we want. And it takes the greatest kind of courage. I mean, what we really want.”

Ayn Rand (1905–1982) Russian-American novelist and philosopher

World, Courage, Evil

“Teaching at best beckons us to morality, but it is not in itself efficacious. Teaching is like a mirror. It can show you if your face is dirty, but it the mirror will not wash your face.”

Ravi Zacharias (1946) Indian philosopher

2000s
Source: [Jesus Among Other Gods: The Absolute Claims of the Christian Message, 2002, 9780849943270, 90]

“It's no longer enough to teach our children Bible stories; they need doctrine and apologetics.”

William Lane Craig (1949) American Christian apologist and evangelist

Children

“The most efficient way of rendering the poor harmless is to teach them to want to imitate the rich.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book The Shadow of the Wind

Source: The Shadow of the Wind

Way

“Cats are intended to teach us that not everything in nature has a purpose.”

Garrison Keillor (1942) American radio host and writer

As quoted in The Cat Lover's Book of Fascinating Facts : A Felicitous Look at Felines‎ (1997) by Ed Lucaire

Cats, Nature

“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, Study

“Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

“It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever, he said. Have you thought of going into teaching?”

Terry Pratchett book Mort

Source: Mort

“Do not indoctrinate your children. Teach them how to think for themselves, how to evaluate evidence, and how to disagree with you.”

Richard Dawkins book The God Delusion

Source: The God Delusion

Children, Thinking

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut!”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

From a set of "rules for life" sent to publisher Charles Scribner IV; quoted in Scribner's memoir In the Company of Writers (New York: Scribner, 1991), p. 64 https://books.google.com/books?id=yYdHGtlgIsYC&pg=PA64&dq=hemingway+%22rules+for+life%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj-zvyfgNDMAhUJ_mMKHU6zDrYQ6AEIIzAB#v=onepage&q=%20%22rules%20for%20life%22&f=false

“If history teaches anything, it teaches that self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Speech to the House of Commons (8 June 1982) http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1982/60882a.htm 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985) Context: From Stettin on the Baltic to Varna on the Black Sea, the regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than thirty years to establish their legitimacy. But none — not one regime — has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bayonets do not take root.... If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.... Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used, for the ultimate determinant in the struggle that's now going on in the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas, a trial of spiritual resolve, the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish, the ideals to which we are dedicated.

History

“The golden rule for understanding spiritually is not intellect, but obedience. If a man wants scientific knowledge, intellectual curiosity is his guide; but if he wants insight into what Jesus Christ teaches, he can only get it by obedience.”

Oswald Chambers (1874–1917) British missionary

Understanding, Knowledge, Christ

“I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.”

E.E. Cummings (1894–1962) American poet

Collected Poems (1938) New Poems 22
Variant: I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

Star, Bird, Learning, Singing

“The teachings of the Bible are so interwoven and entwined with our whole civic and social life that it would be literally impossible for us to figure to ourselves what that life would be if these teaching were removed.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

Life

“We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading.”

B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist

As quoted in B. F. Skinner : The Man and His Ideas (1968) by Richard Isadore Evans, p. 73.
Context: We shouldn't teach great books; we should teach a love of reading. Knowing the contents of a few works of literature is a trivial achievement. Being inclined to go on reading is a great achievement.

Love, Books, Reading

“All the geography, trigonometry, and arithmetic in the world are useless unless you learn to think for yourself. No school teaches you that. It's not on the curriculum.”

Carlos Ruiz Zafón book Marina

Source: Marina

World, School, Thinking, Learning

“Without cruelty there is no festival: thus the longest and most ancient part of human history teaches — and in punishment there is so much that is festive!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book On the Genealogy of Morality

Essay 2, Section 6
On the Genealogy of Morality (1887)
Source: On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo

History, Parting

“Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.”

Virginia Woolf book Monday or Tuesday

Source: Monday or Tuesday

Reading

“My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Love

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Learning

“The trick is to teach yourself to read in small sips as well as long swallows.”

Stephen King (1947) American author

Reading

“You may go over the world and you will find that every form of religion which has breathed upon this earth has degraded woman… I have been traveling over the old world during the last few years and have found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself upon the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion/ Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, 'Thus saith the Lord,' of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of woman, how are we to break the chains which have held women down through the ages? You Christian women look at the Hindoo, the Turkish, the Mormon women, and wonder how they can be held in such bondage…

Now I ask you if our religion teaches the dignity of woman? It teaches us the abominable idea of the sixth century--Augustine's idea--that motherhood is a curse; that woman is the author of sin, and is most corrupt. Can we ever cultivate any proper sense of self-respect as long as women take such sentiments from the mouths of the priesthood?”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902) Suffragist and Women's Rights activist

Women, Age, World, Religion

“[E]verybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching.”

Oscar Wilde book The Decay of Lying

Spoken by "Vivian."
The Decay of Lying (1889)

Learning

“You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it within himself.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

As quoted in How to Win Friends and Influence People (1935) by Dale Carnegie, p. 117; also paraphrased as "You cannot teach a man anything, you can only help him to find it for himself." Attributions are found as early as 1882. Attributed Source: Google Books link https://books.google.com/books?id=h70_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA476&dq=You+cannot+teach+a+man+anything;+you+can+only+help+him+find+it+within+himself&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMI39Gmss_gyAIVRNRjCh1Q2wGN#v=onepage&q=%22You%20cannot%20teach%22&f=false

Help

“My 'morals' were sound, even a bit puritanic, but when a hidebound old deacon inveighed against dancing I rebelled. By the time of graduation I was still a 'believer' in orthodox religion, but had strong questions which were encouraged at Harvard. In Germany I became a freethinker and when I came to teach at an orthodox Methodist Negro school I was soon regarded with suspicion, especially when I refused to lead the students in public prayer. When I became head of a department at Atlanta, the engagement was held up because again I balked at leading in prayer. I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war..”

W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) American sociologist, historian, activist and writer

Source: The Autobiography of W.E.B. Du Bois: A Soliloquy on Viewing My Life from the Last Decade of Its First Century

War, School, Religion, Color

“I am convinced that every effort must be made in childhood to teach the young to use their own minds. For one thing is sure: If they don't make up their minds, someone will do it for them.”

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

Source: You Learn by Living: Eleven Keys for a More Fulfilling Life

Effort, Childhood

“We teach best what we most need to learn.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Variant: You teach best what you most need to learn.
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah

Learning

“to teach without zest is a crime.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“I believe in teaching people to be individuals, and to understand other individuals.”

E.M. Forster book A Passage to India

Source: A Passage to India

People, Understanding

“If you want to use television to teach somebody, you must first teach
them how to use television.”

Umberto Eco (1932–2016) Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist

“Were all instructors to realize that the quality of mental process, not the production of correct answers, is the measure of educative growth something hardly less than a revolution in teaching would be worked.”

John Dewey book Democracy and Education

Source: Democracy and Education

Education

“How can a society that exists on instant mashed potatoes, packaged cake mixes, frozen dinners, and instant cameras teach patience to its young?”

Paul Sweeney (1989) Scottish politician

Patience

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.”

Phil Collins (1951) English musician, songwriter and actor

Learning, Deep, Success, Teachers' Day

“What we have loved
Others will love
And we will teach them how.”

William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet

Love

“I would like to be known as an intelligent woman, a courageous woman, a loving woman, a woman who teaches by being.”

Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet

Love, Intelligence, Courage

“The master is not the one who teaches; it's the one who suddenly learns.”

João Guimarães Rosa (1908–1967) Brazilian novelist

Source: Grande Sertao: Veredas

Learning

“I will simply express my strong belief, that that point of self-education which consists in teaching the mind to resist its desires and inclinations, until they are proved to be right, is the most important of all, not only in things of natural philosophy, but in every department of daily life.”

Michael Faraday (1791–1867) English scientist

Life, Education, Nature, Strong

“The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.”

Frédéric Bastiat (1801–1850) French classical liberal theorist, political economist, and member of the French assembly

Le plus pressé, ce n'est pas que l'État enseigne, mais qu'il laisse enseigner. Tous les monopoles sont détestables, mais le pire de tous, c'est le monopole de l'enseignement.
In 'Cursed Money!', final thought.
The Bastiat-Proudhon Debate on Interest (1849–1850)
Source: What Is Money?

Education

“There is nothing in our book, the Qur'an, that teaches us to suffer peacefully. Our religion teaches us to be intelligent. Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone lays a hand on you, send him to the cemetery. That's a good religion.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

November 10, 1963
This was said before Malcolm X left the Nation of Islam and as he himself stated, before he truly understood Islam.
Malcolm X Speaks (1965)

Books, Peace, Religion, Law

“Education does not mean teaching people what they do not know. It means teaching them to behave as they do not behave.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

People, Education

“O! she doth teach the torches to burn bright
It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night
Like a rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear;
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear.

- Romeo”

William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet

Source: Romeo and Juliet

Beauty, Night

“The only animal from which humans have nothing to learn, in fact, is the sheep. Humans have already learned everything the sheep's got to teach.”

Glen Duncan book I, Lucifer

Source: I, Lucifer

Learning, Animals

“If men could learn from history, what lessons it might teach us! But passion and party blind our eyes, and the light which experience gives is a lantern on the stern, which shines only on the waves behind us!”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English poet, literary critic and philosopher

18 December 1831
Table Talk (1821–1834)

Men, History, Light, Learning

“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow.”

Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet

Source: The Critic as Artist

People

“Those honor nature well, who teach that she can speak on everything.”

Blaise Pascal Pensées

Source: Pensées

Nature

“When we teach ourselves and our children discipline, we are teaching them and ourselves how to suffer and also how to grow.”

M. Scott Peck (1936–2005) American psychiatrist

Children, Suffering

“Photography doesn't teach you to express your emotions; it teaches you how to see.”

Berenice Abbott (1898–1991) American photographer

“The Scoutmaster teaches boys to play the game by doing so himself.”

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

Game, Boy

“Those who can -- do. Those who can't -- teach.”

H.L. Mencken (1880–1956) American journalist and writer

“If historical experience could teach us anything, it would be that private property is inextricably linked with civilization.”

Ludwig von Mises book Human Action

Source: Human Action (1949), Chapter XV. The Market, § 4 The Scope and Method of Catallactics

“If you teach a man anything, he will never learn.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

Learning

“I need the sea because it teaches me”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: On the Blue Shore of Silence: Poems of the Sea

Sea

“It is far easier for me to teach twenty what were right to be done, than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching.”

William Shakespeare As You Like It

Source: As You Like It

“I discovered that rejections are not altogether a bad thing. They teach a writer to rely on his own judgment and to say in his heart of hearts, "To hell with you."”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Quoted in "Feeling Rejected? Join Updike, Mailer, Oates..." by Barbara Bauer and Robert F. Moss, New York Times (21 July 1985), section 7, page 1, column 1
General sources

Hell, Heart

“The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves”

Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer

Education

“The easy confidence with which I know another man's religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

marginal note in Moncure D. Conway's Sacred Anthology
quoted by Albert Bigelow Paine in Mark Twain: A Biography (1912)

Religion, Confidence

“I can teach anybody how to get what they want out of life. The problem is that I can't find anybody who can tell me what they want.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Life, Problem

“Those you cannot teach to fly, teach to fall faster.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Flying

“The more abstract the truth you wish to teach, the more you need to seduce the senses to it.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Truth, Sense

“Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”

Malcolm X (1925–1965) American human rights activist

Source: Malcolm X Speaks: Selected Speeches and Statements
Source: Malcolm X Speaks (1965), p. 22

“When I am king they shall not have bread and shelter only, but also teachings out of books, for a full belly is little worth where the mind is starved.”

Mark Twain book The Prince and the Pauper

Source: The Prince and the Pauper

Books

“The key to raising achievement is to recognize that teaching and learning is a relationship.”

Ken Robinson (1950) UK writer

Source: Creative Schools: Revolutionizing Education from the Ground Up

Learning

“This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.”

Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) Austrian poet and writer

Bird, Flying

“Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"Fear, the Foundation of Religion"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Context: Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing – fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us, and I think our own hears can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

World, Support, Thinking, Effort

“History teaches us that the capacity for things to get worse is limitless.”

Chalmers Johnson (1931–2010) American political scientist

History