Quotes About Learning

We were wrong about trains, we were wrong about planes, we were wrong about radio, we were wrong about phones, we were wrong about . . . well, for a voluminous list of the things we have been wrong about, you could do worse than dig out a copy of a book called The Experts Speak by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.

Protect me from knowing what I don't need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don't know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.

So you see, the major difference between someone of my age and someone of yours is not how much I know, but how much I've forgotten

The teacher usually learns more than the pupils. Isn't that true? 'It would be hard to learn much less than my pupils,' came a low growl from somewhere on the table, 'without undergoing a pre-frontal lobotomy.

The knack of flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss

People who talk to themselves on the phone," said Ford, "never learn anything to their advantage.

He felt that the more time he spent away out in the Galaxy the more it seemed that the number of things he didn't know anything about actually increased.

So far they had not done well. They had attempted to eat some of them, bury others and throw the rest of them away. Arthur had finally encouraged one of them to lay a couple of stones on the board he had scratched out, which was not even as far as he'd managed to get the day before. Along with the rapid deterioration in the morale of these creatures, there seemed to be a corresponding deterioration in their actual intelligence

Sen iyi misin? dedi çocuk. Hay?r, dedi Arthur. Peki, sakal?nda neden bir kemik var? dedi çocuk. Onu, koyduÄŸum yeri sevmesi için eÄŸitiyorum.

I went to Cambridge University. I took a number of baths—and a degree in English.

if there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and other times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.

The Guide says that there is an art to flying,' said Ford, 'or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.' He smiled weakly. He pointed at the knees of his trousers and held his arms up to show the elbows. They were all torn and worn through. 'I haven't done very well so far,' he said.

He had had a nasty feeling that that might be an idiotic thing to do, but he did it anyway, and sure enough it had turned out to be an idiotic thing to do. You live and learn. At any rate, you live. You also panic.

Se gli umani non si esercitano in continuazione a parlare, il loro cervello rischia di mettersi a funzionare

If there was one thing life had taught her it was that there are times when you do not go back for your bag and times when you do. It had yet to teach her to distinguish between the two types of occasion.

Hughes often said that men fail to make progress in learning not for lack of time or ability but for lack of hard work.

Hughes often said that men fail to make progress in learning not for lack of time or ability but for lack of hard work. Unlike so many university students today, who stay up late partying, eating pizza, and playing video games, Watts and his friends did not fritter away the hours. They did, however, stay up late. Far into the night, Watts went on reading and annotating what he read.

Inspiration is a tool and a trap. If you're going to be inspired by anyone, be inspired by people who have been exactly where you are now.

Unhappy endings are just as important as happy endings. They're an efficient way of transmitting vital Darwinian information. Your brain needs them to make maps of the world, maps that let you know what sorts of people and situations to avoid.

Marshall alone his room with a comically tall stack of books, methodically absorbing their contents as though they were drugs...

He knew that the fuel his brain craved could only be found in a proper university.

The best thing about being young is being stupid. Or rather, the best thing about being young is being too stupid to know how stupid you really are.

Most people don't learn things along the way. Or if they do, they conveniently forget those things when it suits their need. Most people, given a second chance, fuck it up completely. It's one of those laws of the universe that you can't shake. People, I have noticed, only seem to learn once they get their third chance—after losing and wasting vast sums of time, money, youth, and energy—you name it. But still they learn, which is the better thing in the end.

What it does serve to remind us is that learning formal English grammar from a nineteenth-century textbook, without a qualified teacher, was a truly daunting task, as anyone who picks up a copy of Kirkham's will readily see.