If you give a person a fish, they’ll fish for a day. But if you train a person to fish, they’ll fish for a lifetime.

Why did I become Jackie Chan? Mostly because I work very hard. When people were sleeping, I was still training.

I had to prove you could be a new kind of black man. I had to show the world.

I thought I couldn’t make a difference because I was too small.

I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind.

Oppressed people cannot remain oppressed forever. The yearning for freedom eventually manifests itself.

Independence is a heady draught, and if you drink it in your youth, it can have the same effect on the brain as young wine does. It does not matter that its taste is not always appealing. It is addictive and with each drink you want more.

Computers themselves, and software yet to be developed, will revolutionize the way we learn.

Until we’re educating every kid in a fantastic way, until every inner city is cleaned up, there is no shortage of things to do.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

Let freedom reign. The sun never set on so glorious a human achievement.

I’ve always been surrounded by many great people and professors, but my family, especially my mom who was a teacher, was the person who encouraged me to study and pushed me to continue. When we’re young, we don’t understand why our parents bug us so much with school and doing homework, but it’s a blessing to have that support at home.

I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.

I have a self-defense mind. I’ve had it all my life.

I dropped out of NYU, moved out of my parent’s house, got my own place, and survived on my own. I made music and worked my way from the bottom up.

Charity is injurious unless it helps the recipient to become independent of it.

I’m not convinced that women have the education or the sense of their own history enough or that they understand the cruelty of which men are capable and the delight that many men will take in seeing you choose to chain yourself – then they get to say ‚See, you did it yourself.‘

The fact is, I was never too bright in school. I ain’t ashamed of it, though. I mean, how much do school principals make a month?

People think hard sparring will get you sharp. And you do get sharp in the gym. But anytime I’ve trained that way, I’ve actually been a little bit flatter in the fight. And the knockout shot hasn’t come. It’s almost because my training has been too hard.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.

Freedom lies in being bold.

Time and money spent in helping men to do more for themselves is far better than mere giving.

That is my wish, hope, instruction for all of you: Take your education seriously, okay? Always do that. Because I wouldn’t be here today if it weren’t for my education.

Courage is contagious. When a brave man takes a stand, the spines of others are often stiffened.

As a child of God, I am greater than anything that can happen to me.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.

I encourage people not to be passive consumers of music and of culture in general. And feeling like, yeah, you can enjoy the products of professionals, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to completely give up the reins and give up every connection to music or whatever it happens to be.

Storytelling is a very old human skill that gives us an evolutionary advantage. If you can tell young people how you kill an emu, acted out in song or dance, or that Uncle George was eaten by a croc over there, don’t go there to swim, then those young people don’t have to find out by trial and error.

I got my first computer in the 6th grade or so. As soon as I got it, I was interested in finding out how it worked and how the programs worked and then figuring out how to write programs at just deeper and deeper levels within the system.

The most common criticism I get is that I’m being manipulated and you shouldn’t use children in political ways, because that is abuse, and I can’t think for myself and so on. And I think that is so annoying! I’m also allowed to have a say – why shouldn’t I be able to form my own opinion and try to change people’s minds?

Helping those who have been struck by unforeseeable misfortunes is fundamentally different from making dependency a way of life.

Don’t grow accustomed to living with less, doing less, and being less to the point that you eventually sit back and accept it.

If children grew up according to early indications, we should have nothing but geniuses.

Sometimes if you want to see a change for the better, you have to take things into your own hands.

You may make some mistakes – but that doesn’t make you a sinner. You’ve got the very nature of God on the inside of you.

To kids, I’ve always been more than just some big tough black guy. I train to be tough – I box and do karate – but underneath all that toughness is a tender man.

In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.

Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.

In terms of my involvement in ‚don’t ask, don’t tell‘ and marriage equality and anti-bullying and social emotional learning in schools – these are all things that arise out of my relationship with the world and with my fans.

Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!

Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity.

I wasn’t very good in academics, but I could have been if I could have studied well. I was a smart kid.

Everything I learned I learned from the movies.

I’ve always done whatever I want and always been exactly who I am.

Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master.

The more successful I become, the more I need a man.

I think that all people who feel that there is injustice in the world anywhere should learn as much of it as they can bear. That is our duty.

God has entrusted me with myself.

The proper study of mankind is woman.

We have to abandon the idea that schooling is something restricted to youth. How can it be, in a world where half the things a man knows at 20 are no longer true at 40 – and half the things he knows at 40 hadn’t been discovered when he was 20?

Carry the battle to them. Don’t let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don’t ever apologize for anything.

When I was running training, we would fire a couple of leaders from every SEAL team because they couldn’t lead. And 99.9% of the time, it wasn’t a question of their ability – it was a question of their ability to listen.

Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may make you feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you feel the impact.

We are twice armed if we fight with faith.

He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.

Kathleen Wynne and her band of radical-left cronies think they have a handle on what constitutes human identity and also what should constitute human morality. And I think that that’s being pushed in a manner in schools that’s completely reprehensible. It’s not education, in my estimation. It’s a form of indoctrination.

Our ambition should be to rule ourselves, the true kingdom for each one of us; and true progress is to know more, and be more, and to do more.

The Gates Foundation has learned that two questions can predict how much kids learn: ‚Does your teacher use class time well?‘ and, ‚When you’re confused, does your teacher help you get straightened out?‘

I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again – as I always am when I write.

When I’m in management meetings when we’re deciding my future, those decisions are left up to me. I’m the one who has to go out and fulfill all these obligations, so I should be able to choose which ones I do or not. That’s the part of my life where I feel most in control.