Quotes About Learning

Books + friendship = book club

the failing of a student to learn is the failing of the teacher to teach.

The library. Books held the answer to every question.

Es wäre lächerliche und ungerechtfertigte Selbstüberhebung, wenn wir annehmen wollten, wir seien energischer oder intelligenter als das Altertum - unser Wissensstoff hat zugenommen, nicht aber die Intelligenz. Darum sind wir neuen Ideen gegenüber gerade so borniert und unfähig wie die Menschen in den dunklesten Zeiten des Altertums. An Wissen sind wir reich geworden, nicht aber an Weisheit.

Naturally every investigator must document his findings as fully as possible, but he should also venture an occasional hypothesis even at the risk of making a mistake. Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.

Uno mira hacia atrás con agradecimiento a los maestros brillantes, pero con gratitud a aquellos que tocaron nuestros sentimientos humanos. El plan de estudios es tanto la materia prima necesaria, pero el calor es el elemento vital de la planta en crecimiento y para el alma del niño

If we have a chance of succeeding and bringing stability and democracy to Iraq, it will mean learning from our mistakes, not denying them and not ignoring them.

It's odd that in our culture we assume that everyone can (and should) learn basic language skills although only a small percentage will become authors. We also assume that everyone can learn math while only a few will become mathematicians. However, we assume that drawing requires some special talent possessed by only a few and the rest need not try.

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

You know that I don't believe that anyone has ever taught anything to anyone. I question that efficacy of teaching. The only thing that I know is that anyone who wants to learn will learn. And maybe a teacher is a facilitator, a person who puts things down and shows people how exciting and wonderful it is and asks them to eat.

I have learned that my total organismic sensing of a situation is more trustworthy than my intellect.

So while I still hate to readjust my thinking, still hate to give up old ways of perceiving and conceptualizing, yet at some deeper level I have, to a considerable degree, come to realize that these painful reorganizations are what is known as learning,

I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning.

another way of learning for me is to state my own uncertainties, to try to clarify my puzzlements, and thus get closer to the meaning that my experience actually seems to have.

It seems to me that anything that can be taught to another is relatively inconsequential, and has little or no significant influence on behavior.

To be responsibly self-directing means that one chooses—and then learns from the consequences. So clients find this a sobering but exciting kind of experience.

Another learning which cost me much to recognize, can be stated in four words. The facts are friendly. (...) Especially in our early investigations I can well remember the anxiety of waiting to see how the findings came out. Suppose our hypotheses were disproved! Suppose we were mistaken in our views! (...) I have perhaps been slow in coming to realize that the facts are always friendly. Every bit of evidence that one can acquire, in any area, leads one that much closer to what is true.

One of the basic things which I was a long time in realizing, and which I am still learning, is that when an activity feels as though it is valuable or worth doing, it is worth doing. Put another way, I have learned that my total organismic sensing of a situation is more trustworthy than my intellect.

group of us felt that ideas were being fed to us, whereas we wished primarily to explore our own questions and doubts, and find out where they led.

When I try to teach, as I do sometimes, I am appalled by the results, which seem a little more than inconsequential, because sometimes the teaching appears to succeed. When this happens I find that the results are damaging. It seems to cause the individual to distrust his own experience, and to stifle significant learning. Hence I have come to feel that the outcomes of teaching are either unimportant or hurtful.

Theology masters the man; the man is never to master the theology.

We may live in an age when everything has to be "radical" and "revolutionary." For Luther the most radical thing one could do was to learn the basics of the faith with the simple trust of a little child.

Don't be committed to the guess, be committed to the process of guessing.

I believe that the testing of the student's achievements in order to see if he meets some criterion held by the teacher, is directly contrary to the implications of therapy for significant learning.