quotations about education
All education has this provisional quality. In school, as well as in dreams, we learn in childhood a great deal that finds no immediate use or expression. For many years we may scarcely remember the lesson, then comes the occasion for it, and the information needed is suddenly restored.
AMELIA E. BARR
All the Days of My Life
If you had to explain America’s economic success with one word, that word would be “education".... Until now, the results of educational neglect have been gradual -- a slow-motion erosion of America’s relative position. But things are about to get much worse, as the economic crisis ... deals a severe blow to education across the board.... We need to wake up and realize that one of the keys to our nation’s historic success is now a wasting asset. Education made America great; neglect of education can reverse the process.
PAUL KRUGMAN
New York Times, Oct. 8, 2009
Education is one of those subjects which, from their very nature, do not admit of a very close approach to demonstrative argument. Neither from history, nor from our knowledge of nature and of the human soul, nor from the study of the details of experience in the past, can we construct a science--strictly speaking--of education. Pedagogics will probably never hold a place among the exact sciences. We may, however, form comprehensive and defensible opinions on this subject; and these opinions will be the more entitled to respect and acceptance, as the mind holding them is itself genial and truly liberal, and is also acquainted with the truths of history, of nature, and especially of the human soul.
GEORGE TRUMBULL LADD
Essays on the Higher Education
'Tis education forms the common mind,
Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined.
ALEXANDER POPE
Moral Essays
As a father should provide for the religious education of his children, so should a government for the instruction of its subjects.
CATHERINE SINCLAIR
Modern Accomplishments; The March of the Intellect
Every city should make the common school so rich, so large, so ample, so beautiful in its endowments, and so fruitful in its results, that a private school will not be able to live under the drip of it.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
As education becomes inclusive, introspective, cosmic, promoting whole populations to power and privilege, it enthrones a vast, invisible, personal rule over the common mind.
AMOS BRONSON ALCOTT
Table Talk
Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
G. K. CHESTERTON
Collected Works of G. K. CHESTERTON
Education makes a people easy to lead, but difficult to drive; easy to govern, but impossible to enslave.
HENRY PETER BROUGHAM
Do you ask, then, what will educate your son? Your example will educate him.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales
The chief wonder of education is that it does not ruin everybody concerned in it, teachers and taught.
HENRY ADAMS
The Education of Henry Adams
It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled. Every man was to be trained, not only to the use of arms, but of his wits also; and it is these which alone make the others effective weapons for the maintenance of freedom.
JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
"New England Two Centuries Ago", The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose
Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in. That every man may receive at least a moderate education, and thereby be enabled to read the histories of his own and other countries, by which he may duly appreciate the value of our free institutions, appears to be an object of vital importance, even on this account alone, to say nothing of the advantages and satisfaction to be derived from all being able to read the Scriptures, and other works both of a religious and moral nature, for themselves.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
speech delivered as candidate for the state legislature, March 9, 1832
Though men be endowed with beauty and youth, and be born in a noble family, yet without education, they are like a palas tree, which is void of any sweet smell.
CHANAKYA
Vridda-Chanakya
As we educate a child -- removing out of its path those obstacles over which we ourselves, in early days, have stumbled, and strengthening its mind with the aid of our own matured experience -- we, as it were, construct a new and better replica of ourselves, and thus enable the race to move slowly, but surely, forward towards the ultimate goal of existence -- towards perfection.
LEONID ANDREYEV
The Life of Man
Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.
JOHN ADAMS
Thoughts on Government
Education is not the means of showing people how to get what they want. Education is an exercise by means of which enough men, it is hoped, will learn to want what is worth having.
RONALD REAGAN
Children should not be coddled in their intellectual training any more than in their physical; and though the studies should be made interesting the interest should arise out of the studies themselves. We have bred a generation that cannot digest anything intellectual but tablets of peptonized food. One sees that in the popular papers with their brevity, still increasing in brevity as far as brevity can increase, and in the capacity for thought of our rulers.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a pre-requisite.
BARACK OBAMA
Address to Joint Session of Congress, Feb. 24, 2009
Better untaught than ill-taught.
GRENVILLE KLEISER
Dictionary of Proverbs