Quotes About Learning

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.

The world needs wisdom as it has never needed it before; and if knowledge continues to increase, the world will need wisdom in the future even more than it does now.

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of very great importance

Of all the studies by which men acquire citizenship of the intellectual commonwealth, no single one is so indispensable as the study of the past.

I was made to learn Latin and Greek, but I resented it, being of opinion that it was silly to learn a language that was no longer spoken. I believe that all the little good I got from years of classical studies I could have got in adult life in a month.

Without being aware that I was following in my father's footsteps, I read, before I went to Cambridge, Mill's Logic and Political Economy, and made elaborate notes in which I practised the art of expressing the gist of each paragraph in a single sentence.

Most people learn nothing from experience, except confirmation of their prejudices.

There are 2 motives for reading a book; 1. That you enjoy it, 2. that can boast about it on goodreads.

Knowledge, as opposed to fantasies of wish fulfilment, is difficult to come by.

A mind perpetually open, will be a mind perpetually vacant.

seems that men are at their best between sixty and seventy, the reason being that in such occupations a wide experience of other men is essential.

Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed; the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.

The beginnings of Algebra I found far more difficult, perhaps as a result of bad teaching, I was made to learn by heart: 'The square of the sum of two numbers is equal to the sum of their squares increased by twice their product.' I had not the vaguest idea what this meant, and when I could not remember the words, my tutor threw the book at my head, which did not stimulate my intellect in any way.

The goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body.

Most people learn nothing from experience except confirmation of their own prejudices.

Education in cruelty and fear is bad, but no other kind can be given by those who are themselves the slaves of these passions.

Querría ver un mundo en el que la educación tendiese a la libertad mental en lugar de encerrar la mente de la juventud en la rígida armadura del dogma, calculado para protegerla durante toda su vida contra los dardos de la prueba imparcial.

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.

This seems plainly absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities. One

A bad teacher will will aim at imposing his opinion, and turning out a set of pupils all of whom will give the same definite answer on a doubtful point

Most of what I learnt at Cambridge had to be painfully unlearnt later; on the whole, what I had learnt for myself from being left alone in an old library had proved more solid.

although our age far surpasses all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom.

A good world needs knowledge, kindness and courage. It does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

Há dois motivos para ler um livro. Um: porque você gosta; o outro: pra você se gabar disto.