To make your children capable of honesty is the beginning of education.

I loved writing for kids, I loved talking to children about what I’d written, I don’t want to leave that behind.

I’ve never been a manipulator, even in my bachelor days. I never wanted to do things to people that could catch up with me later on.

I always tried to do things by example, even though I was not a very good mother regarding routines and family life.

It’s better to be good than evil, but one achieves goodness at a terrific cost.

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?

My kids always perceived the bathroom as a place where you wait it out until all the groceries are unloaded from the car.

Yes, we’ve still got more work to do. More work to do for every American still in need of a good job or a raise, paid leave or a decent retirement; for every child who needs a sturdier ladder out of poverty or a world-class education; for everyone who has not yet felt the progress of these past seven and a half years.

My problem was my inability to spend much time at home. I thought my family was secure, so I went running around everyplace else. I guess I had more of an effect on other people’s kids than I did my own.

I’ve known for years that the university underserved the community, because we assumed that university education is for 18- to 22-year-olds, which is a proposition that’s so absurd it is absolutely mind-boggling that anyone ever conceptualized it. Why wouldn’t you take university courses throughout your entire life?

War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children.

Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back.

Truly it is an evil to be full of faults; but it is a still greater evil to be full of them and to be unwilling to recognize them, since that is to add the further fault of a voluntary illusion.

There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education.

The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

I did have two dads; one was a socialist, and one was a capitalist. I really decided I would rather be a capitalist.

No matter what engineering field you’re in, you learn the same basic science and mathematics. And then maybe you learn a little bit about how to apply it.

If you want someone to say, ‚She’s so sweet, and she’s so cute, and, honey, point your foot,‘ that’s not my school. You can go to the YMCA and have a nobody teach your kid if that’s what you want to hear.

Study hard so that you can master technology, which allows us to master nature.

I believe that in the pursuit of education, individual desire is more influential than institution, and personal faith more forceful than faculty.

I believe that of all the things I have done, exciting though many of them have been, there’s no doubt in my mind that the most worthwhile have been the establishing of schools and hospitals, and the rebuilding of monasteries in the mountains.

The best measure of a man’s honesty isn’t his income tax return. It’s the zero adjust on his bathroom scale.

I’ll never tell a lie. I’ll never make a misleading statement. I’ll never betray the confidence that any of you had in me. And I’ll never avoid a controversial issue.

No trace of slavery ought to mix with the studies of the freeborn man. No study, pursued under compulsion, remains rooted in the memory.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

I do not raise brats!

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!

No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.

When a father puts in long hours at work, he’s praised for being dedicated and ambitious. But when a mother stays late at the office, she’s sometimes accused of being selfish, neglecting her kids.

Fortunately, we have help from the media. I have to say this: I’m very grateful for the support and kindness that we’ve gotten. People have respected their privacy and in that way, I think, you know, no matter what people may feel about my husband’s policies or what have you, they care about children and that’s been good to see.

Most poets are young simply because they have not been caught up. Show me an old poet, and I’ll show you, more often than not, either a madman or a master… it’s when you begin to lie to yourself in a poem in order simply to make a poem that you fail. That is why I do not rework poems.

You have to stay in school. You have to. You have to go to college. You have to get your degree. Because that’s the one thing people can’t take away from you is your education. And it is worth the investment.

I have spent so much time and so much energy making other people’s children stars.

The truth doesn’t hurt unless it ought to.

Touch a scientist and you touch a child.

Why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as well as prohibition did, in five years Americans would be the smartest race of people on Earth.

When we see persons of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see persons of a contrary character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.

I would like to see people more aware of where their food comes from. I would like to see small farmers empowered. I feed my daughter almost exclusively organic food.

The thing I enjoyed most were visits from children. They did not want public office.

I went to a lovely school, and I got an incredible education. And I actually think that my education is what really sets me apart, ‚cause I’m very smart.

I’m just glad I was able to return to some of that innocence and beauty I had as a child when I started my own family, and my children brought me back some of that spirit.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

In truth, I did enjoy the benefits of a Harvard connection.

When schools flourish, all flourishes.

There is nothing in the world more shameful than establishing one’s self on lies and fables.

Too much of what is called ‚education‘ is little more than an expensive isolation from reality.

India has over 20 percent of the kids born in the world. And they move around a lot.

I think any activity you have your kids in, you’re all trying to live vicariously through them. And you’re jealous of the kid that’s naturally more talented or has the facility, the body, the genes, or the God-given talent. People get jealous of that.

None of my kids want to be actors. They are actually very interested in being musicians. I think they like the process of film from the outside. Mad is interested in editing. Pax loves music and deejaying.

Now that I’m a parent, I understand why my father was in a bad mood a lot.

In so many ways, segregation shaped me, and education liberated me.

When I am playing baseball, I give it all that I have on the ball field. When the ball game is over, I certainly don’t take it home. My little girl who is sitting out there wouldn’t know the difference between a third strike and a foul ball. We don’t talk about baseball at home.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

I’ve got nothing to hide.

The training of children is a profession, where we must know how to waste time in order to save it.

We can’t afford not to educate girls and give women the power and the access that they need.

I have a son, who is my heart. A wonderful young man, daring and loving and strong and kind.

I would have a workshop attached to every school, and one hour a day given up to the teaching of simple decorative arts. It would be a golden hour to the children.

People need good lies. There are too many bad ones.

The internet could be a very positive step towards education, organisation and participation in a meaningful society.

Americans want students to get the best education possible. We want schools to prepare children to become good citizens and members of a prosperous American economy.