Quotes on Education, Knowledge, Wisdom & Enlightenment

You are visiting
www.rawfoodinfo.com

EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE,WISDOM & ENLIGHTENMENT

You are visiting
www.rawfoodinfo.com

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when adults are afraid of the light.

Plato

Whoever would be a teacher of men let him begin by teaching himself before teaching others; and let him teach by example before teaching by word. For he who teaches himself and rectifies his own ways is more deserving of respect and reverence than he who would teach others and rectify their ways.

Kahlil Gibran
mystic, poet and artist
(1883-1931)

We are more and more into communications and less and less into communication.

Wright Morris

Change your thoughts and you change your world.

Norman Vincent Peale

There is not enough darkness in the world to put out the light of one candle.

Unknown

The more you know, the more you know you don't know.

Aristotle

I'm not young enough to know everything.

J.M. Barrie

Nowadays, when a medicine person dies, and he/she has not had someone to pass on his/her knowledge, it is as if a whole library of information has been lost to the world.

unknown

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

Mark Twain

That which is looked upon by one generation as the apex of human knowledge is often considered an absurdity by the next, and that which is regarded as a superstition in one century, may form the basis of science for the following one.

Paracelsus

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.

Ambrose Bierce
writer
(1842-1914)

The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

Gloria Steinem,
women's rights activist, editor

A man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Mark Twain
1835-1910

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Jimi Hendrix

If the Aborigine drafted an I.Q. test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.

Stanley Garn

There is nobody so irritating as somebody with less intelligence and more sense than we have.

Don Herold

The invention of IQ does a great disservice to creativity in education.

Joel Hildebrand

The course of every intellectual, if he pursues his journey long and unflinchingly enough, ends in the obvious from which the non-intellectual have never stirred.

Aldous Huxley

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.

James Madison

Dictionaries are like watches: the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Samuel Johnson
lexicographer, essayist, poet, critic
(1709-1784)

"What is as important as Knowledge?" asked the Mind.
"Seeing with the Heart," answered the Soul.

Ask, and it shall be given you; Seek, and ye shall find;
Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

Jesus of Nazareth

New Knowledge comes when you simply bear in mind what you need to know. Keep holding the problem in mind, and it will yield.

Spencer Brown

Everything you've learned in school as 'obvious' becomes less and less obvious as you begin to study the universe. For example, there are no solids in the universe. There's not even a suggestion of a solid. There are no absolute continuums. There are no surfaces. There are no straight lines.

R. Buckminster Fuller
engineer, designer, and architect
(1895-1983)

Teaching is a way to love others.
Learning is a way to love yourself.

Author unknown

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

Alexandre Dumas

It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

James Thurber

I think I think; therefore I think I am.

Ambrose Bierce

Strange times are these in which we live when old and young are taught in falsehoods school. And the one man that dares to tell the truth is called at once a lunatic and fool.

Plato

It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.

Robert Southey
(1774-1843)

Words are the soul's ambassadors, who go abroad upon her errands to and fro.

James Howell
writer
(1594-1666)

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.

Derek Bok

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.

Alex Bourne

If thou would'st have that stream of hard-earn'd knowledge, of Wisdom heaven-born, remain sweet running waters, thou should'st not leave it to become a stagnant pond.

H. P. Blavatsky

Mediocre men often have the most acquired knowledge.

Claude Bernard
physiologist
(1813-1878)

Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils.

Hector Berlioz
quoted in Almanach des lettres françaises

There are three schoolmasters for everybody that will employ them - the senses, intelligent companions, and books.

Henry Ward Beecher

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Francis Bacon
Essays

The greatest wisdom is in simplicity: love, respect, tolerance, sharing, gratitude, forgiveness. It's not complex or elaborate. The real knowledge is free. It's encoded in your DNA. All you need is within you. Great teachers have said that from the beginning. Find your heart, and you will find your way.

Carlos Barrios

That is a good book which is opened with expectation, and closed with delight and profit.

Amos Bronson Alcott

It is what we think we know already that prevents us from learning.

Claude Bernard

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell

Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.

James Russell Lowell
poet, essayist, and diplomat
(1819-1891)

I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.

John Cage

It is no good to try to stop knowledge from going forward. Ignorance is never better than knowledge.

Enrico Fermi

Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.

Thomas Henry Huxley
biologist
(1825-1895)

Few people think more than two or three times a year. I've made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.

George Bernard Shaw
writer, Nobel laureate
(1856-1950)

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.

Henry Adams
historian and teacher
(1838-1918)

When you come to the edge of all the light you know...
And you are about to step off into the darkness,
Faith is believing one of two things will happen.
There will be something solid to stand on...
Or you will learn to fly.

attributed to Kary Fober

So difficult it is to show the various meanings and imperfections of words when we have nothing else but words to do it with.

John Locke
philosopher
(1632-1704)

It's impossible to learn nothing.
Even when you believe you are learing nothing.
You are actually still learning something.
Consider eacy day, each moment, each possible lesson, carefully.
Some place thought to be not of interest turns out to be wonderful.
Some time with a friend just chatting and sharing
Becomes a treasured memory.
Some thing almost unnoticed prompts a realization
Towards a philosophy for life.
It is truly impossible to learn nothing when you believe.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek
(1990-2004)

Seeds for Thought

The sword is heavy, and piercing sharp, stronger than rock,
It yields a mighty blow to the foe with each assault.
The bow and arrow are light and swift.
Silent war implement, it yields a surprise attack to front or back, from a distance.
And yet, stronger than the sword, swifter than the arrow, are words --
Among the most powerful of all weapons.
Words can tear and hurt and cause pain and strife.
Words can heal and comfort and sow peace in life,
Heed the wisdom, and use words with care.

Mattie J.T. Stepanek
(1990-2004)

Say oh wise man how you have come to such knowledge? Because I was never ashamed to confess my ignorance and ask others.

Johann Gottfried Von Herder
critic and poet
(1744-1803)

The road to wisdom? Well it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again, but less and less and less.

Piet Hein
poet and scientist
(1905-1996)

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

Henry David Thoreau
naturalist and author
(1817-1862)

Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul.

Mark Twain
inscription beneath his bust in the Hall of Fame

Minds are like parachutes -- they only function when open.

Thomas Dewar

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

George Bernard Shaw
writer, Nobel laureate
(1856-1950)

For me, words are a form of action, capable of influencing change.

Ingrid Bengis
writer and teacher
(1944- )

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.

Ezra Pound
poet
(1885-1972)

To accuse others for one's own misfortune is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one's education is complete.

Epictetus
Greek philosopher

He who opens a school door, closes a prison.

Victor Hugo
poet, novelist and dramatist
(1802-1885)

Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by decline in bile.

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
philosopher
(1844-1900)

One glance at a book and you hear the voice of another person, perhaps someone dead for 1,000 years. To read is to voyage through time.

Carl Sagan
astronomer and writer
(1934-1996)

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

Joseph Addison
essayist and poet
(1672-1719)

Education is perhaps the most important function of state and local governments. . . . It is doubtful that any child may reasonably be expected to succeed in life if he is denied the opportunity of an education.

Chief Justice Earl Warren
1954

Here is where people, one frequently finds, lower their voices and raise their minds.

Richard Armour
author, on libraries
(1906-1989)

The television, that insidious beast, that Medusa which freezes a billion people to stone every night, staring fixedly, that Siren which called and sang and promised so much and gave, after all, so little.

Ray Bradbury
science-fiction writer
(1920- )

Many highly intelligent people are poor thinkers. Many people of average intelligence are skilled thinkers. The power of the car is separate from the way the car is driven.

Edward De Bono
consultant, writer, and speaker
(1933- )

What is reading, but silent conversation.

Walter Savage Landor
writer
(1775-1864)

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Aldous Huxley
novelist
(1894-1963)

There are books in which the footnotes or comments scrawled by some reader's hand in the margin are more interesting than the text. The world is one of these books.

George Santayana
philosopher
(1863-1952)

A book lying idle on a shelf is wasted ammunition. Like money, books must be kept in constant circulation. Lend and borrow to the maximum.

Henry Miller
novelist
(1891-1980)

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.

Alexandre Dumas

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

Bertrand Russell
philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate
(1872-1970)

Readers may be divided into four classes: 1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied. 2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time. 3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read. 4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
poet and critic
(1772-1834)

By words the mind is winged.

Aristophanes
dramatist
(c. 448-385 BCE)

Who will consider that no dictionary of a living tongue ever can be perfect, since, while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding, and some falling away; that a whole life cannot be spent upon syntax and etymology, and that even a whole life would not be sufficient; that he, whose design includes whatever language can express, must often speak of what he does not understand.

Samuel Johnson
English writer and lexicographer
(1709-1784)

Dictionary: Opinion presented as truth in alphabetical order.

John Ralston Saul
writer
(1947- )

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Samuel Johnson
from essay, The Rambler
30 April 1751

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

John F. Kennedy
35th US president
(1917-1963)

Samuel Johnson
lexicographer
(1709-1784)

We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't.

Frank A. Clark, writer
(1911- )

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.

Arthur Schopenhauer , philosopher
(1788-1860)

Words are a mirror of their times. By looking at the areas in which the vocabulary of a language is expanding fastest in a given period, we can form a fairly accurate impression of the chief preoccupations of society at that time and the points at which the boundaries of human endeavour are being advanced.

John Ayto, lexicographer
(1949- )

One must be drenched in words, literally soaked in them, to have the right ones form themselves into the proper patterns at the right moment.

Hart Crane, poet
(1899-1932)

Back to Quotes

Top of the Page