Quotes About Learning

The result is that much reading robs the mind of all elasticity, as the continual pressure of a weight does a spring, and that the surest way of never having any thoughts of your own is to pick up a book every time you have a free moment.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

The more distinctly a man knows, the more intelligent he is, the more pain he has.

How very learned many a man would be if he knew everything that was in his own books! The consequence of this is that these writers talk in such a loose and vague manner, that the reader puzzles his brains in vain to understand what it is of which they are really thinking. They are thinking of nothing.

mas sabe el necio en su casa, que el sabio en la agena.

The character of the human being is empirical. Only through experience can one become acquainted with it, not merely with that of others, but also with one's own.

Es wäre gut, Bücher zu kaufen, wenn man die Zeit, sie zu lesen, mitkaufen könnte.

Exigir que um indivíduo conserve na sua mente tudo o que já leu é como querer que ele ainda traga dentro de si tudo o que já comeu na vida.

The younger we are, the more each individual object represents for us the whole class to which it belongs.

However, the main endeavor must always be to let particular observations precede general ideas, and not vice versa, as is usually and unfortunately the case; as though a child should come feet foremost into the world, or a verse be begun by writing down the rhyme! The ordinary method

Seria bom comprar livros se, junto com eles, fosse possível comprar também o tempo para lê-los, mas na maioria das vezes troca-se a compra dos livros pela aquisição do seu conteúdo.

De um modo geral, a forragem da cocheira dos professores é a mais apropriada para esses ruminantes. Em contrapartida, aqueles que recebem o seu alimento das mãos da natureza preferem o ar livre.

We must first learn from experience what we desire and what we can do. Till then we know it not, we are without character, and must often be driven back to our own way by hard blows from without. But if we have finally learnt it, then we have attained to what in the world is called character, the acquired character. This is accordingly nothing but the most perfect knowledge possible of our own individuality.

Students, and learned persons of all sorts and every age, aim as a rule at acquiring information rather than insight. They pique themselves upon knowing about everything—stones, plants, battles, experiments, and all the books in existence. It never occurs to them that information is only a means of insight, and in itself of little or no value.

Quando procuramos estimular a nossa inteligência e o nosso conhecimento, sentimos constantemente a resistência da época como um peso que devemos arrastar, mas que, apesar de todo o nosso esforço, insiste em manter-se no chão.

Entretanto os eruditos, em sua maioria, estudam exclusivamente com o objetivo de um dia poderem ensinar e escrever. Assim, sua cabeça é semelhante a um estômago e a um intestino dos quais a comida sai sem ser digerida. Justamente por isso, seu ensino e seus escritos têm pouca utilidade. Não é possível alimentar os outros com restos não digeridos, mas só com o leite que se formou a partir do próprio sangue.

O, wie wenig muss doch einer zu denken gehabt haben, damit er soviel hat lesen können!

Leer es pensar con la cabeza de otro en lugar de con la propia.

If anyone spends almost the whole day in reading...he gradually loses the capacity for thinking...This is the case with many learned persons; they have read themselves stupid.

To buy books would be a good thing if we also could buy the time to read them

Lesen heißt mit einem fremden Kopfe, statt des eigenen, denken.

Só quando a verdade for adquirida por seu próprio pensamento, através dos esforços de seu intelecto, ela se torna membro de seu próprio corpo, e só essa verdade realmente nos pertence.

Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another's flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning.

The pedagogy of suffering means that one who suffers has something to teach, just as Gail claims, and thus has something to give, as Mairs recognizes.