Julia Rea > Julia's Quotes

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.”
― Socrates

“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom. Without this it goes to wrack and ruin without fail.”
― Albert Einstein

“Indeed, learning to write may be part of learning to read. For all I know, writing comes out of a superior devotion to reading.”
― Eudora Welty, On Writing

“If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come.”
― C.S. Lewis

“I think the big mistake in schools is trying to teach children anything, and by using fear as the basic motivation. Fear of getting failing grades, fear of not staying with your class, etc. Interest can produce learning on a scale compared to fear as a nuclear explosion to a firecracker.”
― Stanley Kubrick

“That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.”
― Doris Lessing

“The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

“All subjects are the same. I memorize notes for a test, spew it, ace it, then forget it. What makes this scary for the future of our country is that I'm in the tip-top percentile on every standardized test. I'm a model student with a very crappy attitude about learning.”
― Megan McCafferty, Sloppy Firsts

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.”
― B.B. King

“There are three kinds of men. The ones that learn by readin’. The few who learn by observation.
The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.”
― Will Rogers

“For me, I am driven by two main philosophies: know more today about the world than I knew yesterday and lessen the suffering of others. You'd be surprised how far that gets you.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
― Albert Einstein

“Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."

(Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Early and Miscellaneous Letters of J. W. Goethe: Including Letters to His Mother. With Notes and a Short Biography

“There is no school equal to a decent home and no teacher equal to a virtuous parent.”
― Gandhi

“Wisdom.... comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
― Anton Chekhov

“Small minds have always lashed out at what they don't understand.”
― Dan Brown

“Learn everything you can, anytime you can, from anyone you can, there will always come a time when you will be grateful you did.”
― Sarah Caldwell

“Ah, child and youth, if you knew the bliss which resides in the taste of knowledge, and the evil and ugliness that lies in ignorance, how well you are advised to not complain of the pain and labor of learning.”
― Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies

“I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace. ”
― Helen Keller

“True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their
own.”
― Nikos Kazantzakis

“I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays and have things arranged for them that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas.”
― Agatha Christie, Agatha Christie: An Autobiography

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.”
― William Arthur Ward

“Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.”
― Aristotle

“Adults constantly raise the bar on smart children, precisely because they're able to handle it. The children get overwhelmed by the tasks in front of them and gradually lose the sort of openness and sense of accomplishment they innately have. When they're treated like that, children start to crawl inside a shell and keep everything inside. It takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up again. Kids' hearts are malleable, but once they gel it's hard to get them back the way they were.”
― Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore

“The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher.”
― Elbert Hubbard

“Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.”
― Jacques Barzun

“I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
― Albert Einstein

“When you study great teachers... you will learn much more from their caring and hard work than from their style.”
― William Glasser

“A child who is protected from all controversial ideas is as vulnerable as a child who is protected from every germ. The infection, when it comes- and it will come- may overwhelm the system, be it the immune system or the belief system.”
― Jane Smiley