Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

We are so perverted by an education which from infancy seeks to kill in us the spirit of revolt, and to develop that of submission to authority; we are so perverted by this existence under the ferrule of a law, which regulates every event in life — our birth, our education, our development, our love, our friendship — that, if this state of things continues, we shall lose all initiative, all habit of thinking for ourselves. Our society seems no longer able to understand that it is possible to exist otherwise than under the reign of law, elaborated by a representative government and administered by a handful of rulers. And even when it has gone so far as to emancipate itself from the thralldom, its first care has been to reconstitute it immediately. "The Year I of Liberty" has never lasted more than a day, for after proclaiming it men put themselves the very next morning under the yoke of law and authority.

Care | Education | Existence | Government | Habit | Infancy | Kill | Law | Life | Life | Men | Society | Spirit | Submission | Thinking | Friendship | Society | Government | Understand |

Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

The education we all receive from the State, at school and after, has so warped our minds that the very notion of freedom ends up by being lost, and disguised in servitude.

Education | Ends | Freedom | Receive |

Peter Kropotkin, fully Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin

Those who are persuaded that Anarchy is a collection of visions relating to the future, and an unconscious striving toward the destruction of all present civilization, are still very numerous; and to clear the ground of such prejudices of our education as maintain this view we should have, perhaps, to enter into many details which it would be difficult to embody in a single lecture. Did not the Parisian press, only two or three years ago, maintain that the whole philosophy of Anarchy consisted in destruction, and that its only argument was violence?

Anarchy | Argument | Education | Philosophy | Present |

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Reader, calm yourself: I am no agent of discord, no firebrand of sedition. I anticipate history by a few days; I disclose a truth whose development we may try in vain to arrest; I write the preamble of our future constitution. This proposition which seems to you blasphemous — property is robbery — would, if our prejudices allowed us to consider it, be recognized as the lightning-rod to shield us from the coming thunderbolt; but too many interests stand in the way! ... Alas! philosophy will not change the course of events: destiny will fulfill itself regardless of prophecy. Besides, must not justice be done and our education be finished?

Change | Destiny | Education | Future | History | Justice | Philosophy | Property | Truth | Will |

Phyllis Schlafly, fully Phyllis McAlpin Stewart Schlafly

Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions.

Education |

Phyllis Bottome, aka Phyllis Forbes Dennis (married name)

In my early life, and probably even today, it is not sufficiently understood that a child's education should include at least a rudimentary grasp of religion, sex, and money. Without a basic knowledge of these three primary facts in a normal human being's life /subjects which stir the emotions, create events and opportunities, and if they do not wholly decide must greatly influence an individual's personality /no human being's education can have a safe foundation.

Education | Events | Influence | Knowledge | Life | Life | Personality | Safe |

Plato NULL

Engage in adolescent philosophy and education as boys and young men, and give special attention to their bodies as they grow up, to acquire a helper for philosophy. As the soul begins to mature with the passing years, tighten up its exercise, and when their strength declines and exempts them from military and political duties, then be turned out to pasture to do nothing - except as a sideline - but practice philosophy, if they're to live happily here and crown their lives when they die with their fitting portion over there.

Attention | Boys | Education | Nothing | Philosophy | Practice | Soul | Strength |

Plato NULL

For rhythm and harmony penetrate deeply into the mind and have a most powerful effect on it, and if education is good, bring balance and fairness, if it is bad, the reverse.

Balance | Education | Harmony | Mind |

Plato NULL

It is in education that bad discipline can most easily creep in unobserved.

Discipline | Education |

Plato NULL

That's what education should be ... the art of orientation. Educators should devise the simplest and most effective methods of turning minds around. It shouldn't be the art of implanting sight in the organ, but should proceed on the understanding that the organ already has the capacity, but is improperly aligned and isn't facing the right way.

Art | Education | Right | Understanding | Art |

Plato NULL

And once we have given our community a good start, the process will be cumulative. By maintaining a sound system of education you produce citizens of good character, and citizens of sound character, with the advantage of a good education, produce in turn children better than themselves and better able to produce still better children in their turn, as can be seen with animals.

Better | Children | Education | Good | Sound | System | Will |

Plato NULL

For the object of education is to teach us to love beauty.

Education | Love | Object | Teach |

Plato NULL

Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other, because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul; on which they mightily fasten, imparting grace, and making the soul of him who is rightly educated graceful, or of him who is ill-educated ungraceful; and also because he who has received this education of the inner being will most shrewdly perceive omissions or faults in art and nature, and with a true taste, while he praises and rejoices over and receives into his soul the good, and becomes noble and good, he will justly blame and hate the bad, now in the days of his youth, even before he is able to know the reason why; and when reason comes he will recognize and salute the friend with whom his education has made him long familiar.

Art | Blame | Education | Friend | Harmony | Hate | Reason | Soul | Training | Will | Art |

Plato NULL

Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion has no hold on the mind. Therefore do not use compulsion, but let early education be a sort of amusement; you will then be better able to discover the child's natural bent.

Better | Education | Will |

Plato NULL

I shall try to persuade first the Rulers and soldiers, and then the rest of the community that the upbringing and education we have given them was all something that happened to them only in a dream. In reality they were fashioned and reared, and their arms and equipment manufactured, in the depths of the earth, and Earth herself, their mother, brought them up, when they were complete, into the light of day; so now they must think of the land in which they live as their mother and protect her if she is attacked, while their fellow citizens they must regard as brothers born of the same mother earth…. That is the story. Do you know of any way of making them believe it?

Earth | Education | Land | Light | Mother | Reality | Regard | Rest | Think |

Plato NULL

The soul of him who has education is whole and perfect and escapes the worst disease, but, if a man's education be neglected, he walks lamely through life and returns good for nothing to the world below.

Education | Good | Life | Life | Nothing | Soul | World |

Plato NULL

The object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful.

Education | Love | Object | Teach |

Plato NULL

The soul takes nothing with her to the next world but her education and her culture. At the beginning of the journey to the next world, one's education and culture can either provide the greatest assistance, or else act as the greatest burden, to the person who has just died.

Beginning | Culture | Education | Journey | Nothing | Soul | World |

Prentice Mulford

In the education of the future, music for every person will be deemed as necessary as is reading and writing at present, for it will be clearly seen that it is a most powerful means for bringing life, health and strength.

Education | Health | Means | Music | Reading | Will | Writing |

Hillary Rodham Clinton

There is a great deal of political pressure to only talk about abstinence, and to deny support for condoms and education on using them. This policy will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many people.

Education | Policy | Will |