Quotes About Learning

What is the good of drawing conclusions from experience? I don't deny we sometimes draw the right conclusions, but don't we just as often draw the wrong ones?

In der Mathematik ist die Kunst Fragen zu stellen wertvoller als Probleme zu lösen.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

When a book and a head collide and there is a hollow sound, is it always from the book?

I forget most of what I read, just as I do most of what I have eaten, but I know that both contribute no less to the conservation of my mind and my body on that account.

The man was such an intellectual he was of almost no use.

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to peer out.

Much reading has brought upon us a learned barbarism

In his Comedy , Dante Alighieri names Virgil, with many tokens of respect, as his teacher, and yet as Herr Meinhard remarks, makes such ill use of him: clear proof that even in the days of Dante one praised the ancients without knowing why. This respect for poets one does not understand and yet wishes to equal is the source of the bad writing in our literature.

There is no more important rule of conduct in the world than this: attach yourself as much as you can to people who are abler than you and yet not so very different that you cannot understand them.

if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient.

Aujourd'hui, on cherche partout à répandre le savoir; qui sait si, dans quelques siècles, il n'y aura pas des universités pour rétablir l'ancienne ignorance?

Nothing is more inimical to the progress of science than the belief that we know what we do not yet know.

I believe that some of the greatest minds that ever lived had not read half as much and did not know nearly as much as some of our mediocre scholars. And some 20 of our verr mediocre scholars could have become greater men if they had not read so much.

Kenntnis der Mittel ohne eine eigentliche Anwendung, ja ohne Gabe und Willen, sie anzuwenden, ist, was man jetzt gemeiniglich Gelehrsamkeit nennt.

Wenn ein Buch und ein Kopf zusammenstoßen und es klingt hohl, ist das allemal im Buch?

Man findet Spuren aller Wissenschaften in den Sprachen, und umgekehrt vieles in den Sprachen das in den Wissenschaften nützen kann.

I believe that some of the greatest minds that ever lived had not read half as much and did not know nearly as much as some of our mediocre scholars. And some of our very mediocre scholars could have become greater men if they had not read so much.

Nothing puts a greater obstacle in the way of the progress of knowledge than thinking that one knows what one does not yet know.

Aquello tuvo el efecto que por lo general tienen los buenos libros. Hizo más tontos a los tontos, más listos a los listos y los miles restantes quedaron ilesos.

Un libro es como un espejo: si un mono se asoma a él no puede ver reflejado a un apóstol. Carecemos de palabras para hablar con los tontos de sabiduría. Ya es sabio quien entiende a un sabio.

Um eine fremde Sprache recht gut sprechen zu lernen, und würklich in Gesellschaft zu sprechen mit dem eigentlichen Akzent des Volks, muß man nicht allein Gedächtnis und Ohr haben, sondern auch in gewissem Grad ein kleiner Geek sein.

Es difícil que en el mundo haya mercancía más singular que los libros. Son impresos, vendidos, encuadernados, reseñados y a veces hasta escritos por gente que no los entiende.