The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

As for my own views, they’ve of course evolved over the years. This conception of ‚renouncing beliefs‘ is very odd, as if we’re in some kind of religious cult. I ‚renounce beliefs‘ practically every time I think about the topics or find out what someone else is thinking.

The next time someone tells you we can trim the budget by cutting aid, I hope you will ask whether it will come at the cost of more people dying.

I got interested in reading very early, because a story was read to me, by Hans Christian Andersen, which was ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ and I don’t know if you remember ‚The Little Mermaid,‘ but it’s dreadfully sad. The little mermaid falls in love with this prince, but she cannot marry him because she is a mermaid.

Upon the subjects of which I have treated, I have spoken as I have thought. I may be wrong in regard to any or all of them; but, holding it a sound maxim that it is better only sometimes to be right than at all times to be wrong, so soon as I discover my opinions to be erroneous, I shall be ready to renounce them.

A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.

The tablet is not mainstream. Reading off the screen is not mainstream.

Example is the school of mankind, and they will learn at no other.

When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get ‚Calculus for the Practical Man.‘ By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it.

Every day or two, I strolled to the village to hear some of the gossip which is incessantly going on there, circulating either from mouth to mouth, or from newspaper to newspaper, and which, taken in homeopathic doses, was really as refreshing in its way as the rustle of leaves and the peeping of frogs.

Education is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.

Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever. I’m not really book-smart.

I am afraid that the schools will prove the very gates of hell, unless they diligently labor in explaining the Holy Scriptures and engraving them in the heart of the youth.

I did go to Wellesley, a women’s college. And I am of a kind of strange generation which is transitional in terms of women who wanted to go out and get jobs.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

If a writer knows enough about what he is writing about, he may omit things that he knows. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one ninth of it being above water.

I read a lot of obscure books and it is nice to open a book.

Music is the movement of sound to reach the soul for the education of its virtue.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

Without education, your children can never really meet the challenges they will face. So it’s very important to give children education and explain that they should play a role for their country.

In American math classes, we teach a lot of concepts poorly over many years. In the Asian systems they teach you very few concepts very well over a few years.

Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.

All I know is just what I read in the papers, and that’s an alibi for my ignorance.

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.

Effective communication is 20% what you know and 80% how you feel about what you know.

I read a lot when I’m travelling and always have a couple of books on the go.

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?‘

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.

Most of us believe, or should believe, that every child can learn, given the opportunity, but try substitute teaching just once and you will see firsthand the socioeconomic issues that distract our kids from taking advantage of that opportunity.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

The trouble with having an open mind, of course, is that people will insist on coming along and trying to put things in it.

You may be able to read Bernard Shaw’s plays, you may be able to quote Shakespeare or Voltaire or some new philosopher; but if you in yourself are not intelligent, if you are not creative, what is the point of this education?

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

Whatever came to mind, whatever came to hand, I would read.

For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.

I started out in life as a poet; I was only writing poetry all through my 20s. It wasn’t until I was about 30 that I got serious about writing prose. While I was writing poems, I would often divert myself by reading detective novels; I liked them.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn.

The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.

‚Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.

The major networks, the cable networks, they’re being prosecutors. They’re judges and jurors and executioners. Well, c’mon, that’s ridiculous. But they’re doing it.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

Education commences at the mother’s knee, and every word spoken within hearsay of little children tends toward the formation of character.

I spent much of my childhood in northern Quebec, and often there was no radio, no television – there wasn’t a lot to entertain us. When it rained, I stayed inside reading, writing, drawing.

In poor countries, we still need better ways to measure the effectiveness of the many government workers providing health services. They are the crucial link bringing tools such as vaccines and education to the people who need them most. How well trained are they? Are they showing up to work?

Most rock journalism is people who can’t write, interviewing people who can’t talk, for people who can’t read.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate whether we had better know them.

It was very lucky for me as a writer that I studied the physical sciences rather than English. I wrote for my own amusement. There was no kindly English professor to tell me for my own good how awful my writing really was. And there was no professor with the power to order me what to read, either.

Harvard makes mistakes too, you know. Kissinger taught there.

I’d go to, like, six different schools in one year. We were on welfare, and my mom never ever worked.

After all manner of professors have done their best for us, the place we are to get knowledge is in books. The true university of these days is a collection of books.

Reading and writing are connected. I learned to read very early so I could read the comics, which I then started to draw.

Between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, I must have read a whole library.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.