Quotes About Education

The problem lies in the structure of our minds: we don't learn rules, just facts, and only facts.

The error in reasoning is a bit from wishful thinking, because education is considered "good"; I wonder why people don't make the epiphenomenal association between the wealth of a country and something "bad," say, decadence, and infer that decadence, or some other disease of wealth like a high suicide rate, also generates wealth.)

The number of cultured people dropped below some critical level. Suddenly the place became a vacuum. Brain drain is hard to reverse, and some of the old refinement may be lost forever.

Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books.

During a radio interview, when I tried explaining to the journalist the nuance and the difference between the two statements I was told that I was "too complicated"; so I simply walked out of the studio, leaving them in the lurch. The depressing part is that those people who were committing such mistakes were educated journalists entrusted to represent the world to us lay persons.

But we have evidence that collectively society doesn't advance with organized education, rather the reverse: the level of (formal) education in a country is the result of wealth.*2

My biggest problem with the educational system lies precisely in that it forces students to squeeze explanations out of subject matters and shames them for withholding judgment, for uttering the "I don't know." Why

I have anecdotal evidence in my business that MBAs tend to blow up in financial markets, as they are trained to simplify matters a couple of steps beyond their requirement. (I beg the MBA reader not to take offense; I am myself the unhappy holder of the degree.)

Serious empirical investigation (largely thanks to one Lant Pritchet, then a World Bank economist) shows no evidence that raising the general level of education raises income at the level of a country. But we know the opposite is true, that wealth leads to the rise of education—not an optical illusion. We

In 1960 Taiwan had a much lower literacy rate than the Philippines and half the income per person; today Taiwan has ten times the income. At

in spite of having spent some time in libraries I feel that I am truly an amateur in the subject matter).

I wonder why people don't realize the simple truism, that is, the fooled by randomness effect: mistaking the merely associative for the causal, that is, if rich countries are educated, immediately inferring that education makes a country rich, without even checking. Epiphenomenon

The British government documents, as early as fifty years ago, an aim for education other than the one we have today: raising values, making good citizens, and "learning," not economic growth (they were not suckers at the time)—a point also made by Alison Wolf.

Have you ever wondered why so many of these straight-A students end up going nowhere in life while someone who lagged behind is now getting the shekels, buying the diamonds

that is often associated with classroom knowledge that may get in the way of understanding what's going on in real life.

Having spent a couple of decades in this mind-set, I am convinced (but cannot prove) that training and education can help us avoid its pitfalls.

I have an enormous faith in Time and History as eventual debunkers of fragility. Education is an institution that has been growing without external stressors; eventually the thing will collapse.

It was taken for granted that people learned to be tolerant there;

Journalists can teach us how to not learn.

I recall how we were taught in school how far more civilized and wiser we were than those in the Balkan communities

The most privileged were sent to school in France, as both my grandfathers were

Double a man's erudition; you will halve his citations.

I am not saying that for an individual, education is useless: it builds helpful credentials for one's own career—but such effect washes out at the country level.

The simple one-way relationship which so entrances our politicians and commentators—education spending in, economic growth out—simply doesn't exist