Great Throughts Treasury

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

Learning

"Did it ever strike you that goodness is not merely a beautiful thing, but by far the most beautiful thing in the whole world? So that nothing is to be compared for value with goodness; that riches, honor, power, pleasure, learning, the whole world and all in it, are not worth having in comparison with being good; and the utterly best thing for a person is to be good, even though they were never to be rewarded for it." -

"Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere." - Chinese Proverbs

"There are three ingredients in the good life; learning, earning, and yearning." -

"There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning." -

"It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning." - Claude Bernard

"Learning without thought is useless. Thought without learning is dangerous." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"The principle of higher learning [higher education] consists in preserving man’s clear character, in giving new life to the people, and in dwelling in perfection, or the ultimate good." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"To be fond of learning is to draw close to wisdom. To practice with vigor is to draw close to benevolence. To know the seen of shame is to draw close to courage. He who knows these three things knows how to cultivate his own character. Knowing how to cultivate his own character, he knows how to govern other men. Knowing how to govern other men, he knows how to govern the world, it states, and its families." - Confucius, aka Kong Qiu, Zhongni, K'ung Fu-tzu or Kong Fuzi NULL

"To think of learning as a preparation for something beyond learning is a defeat of the process. The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning." - Daniel Bell

"He who is afraid of asking is ashamed of learning." - Danish Proverbs

"Defensible agnosticism is that of the person who admits that he does not know, and is consequently open to learning." - Elton Trueblood, fully David Elton Trueblood

"Relationships offer us the biggest opportunities for learning lessons in life, for discovering who we are, what we fear, where our power comes from, and the meaning of true love." - Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

"Education is the learning how... to distinguish that of things some are in our power, but others are not; in our power are will and all acts which depend on the will; things not in our power are the body, the parts of the body, possessions, parents, brothers, children, country, and, generally, all with whom we live in society." - Epictetus "the Stoic" NULL

"The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; It should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together. In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists." - Eric Hoffer

"Would you like to learn science? Begin by learning your own language." - Étienne Bonnot de Condillac

"Learning stamps you with its moments. Childhood’s learning is made up of moments. It isn’t steady. It’s a pulse." - Eudora Welty

"Whose neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future." -

"Men’s thoughts are as much according to their inclination; their discourse and speeches according to their learning and infused opinions; but their deeds are after as they have been accustomed." - Francis Bacon

"The commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the commandment over the will: for it is a commandment over the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will itself. For there is no power on earth which setteth up a throne or chair of estate in the spirits and souls of men, and in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions, and beliefs, but knowledge and learning." - Francis Bacon

"It is without all controversy that learning doth make the minds of men gentle, amiable, and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them churlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes." - Francis Bacon

"Learning teaches how to carry things in suspense without prejudice till you resolve." - Francis Bacon

"Men commonly think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and imbibed opinions, but generally act according to custom." - Francis Bacon

"There is no great concurrence between learning and wisdom." - Francis Bacon

"Without controversy, learning doth make the mind of men gentle, generous, amiable and pliant to government; whereas ignorance makes them curlish, thwarting, and mutinous; and the evidence of time doth clear this assertion, considering that the most barbarous, rude, and unlearned times have been most subject to tumults, seditions, and changes." - Francis Bacon

"The justest division of human learning is that derived from the three different faculties of the soul, the seat of learning; history being relative to the memory, poetry to the imagination, and philosophy to the reason." - Francis Bacon

"Learning is either a continuing thing or it is nothing." - Frank Tyger

"A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people." - Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey

"The happiness of the human race in this world does not consist in our being devoid of passions, but in our learning to command them." - French Proverbs

"Learning learns but one lesson: doubt!" - George Bernard Shaw

"The love of money and the love of learning rarely meet." - George Herbert

"The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all." - Harry S. Truman

"Seneca closed the vast circle of his knowledge by learning that a friend in power was a friend lost." -

"It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know." - Henry David Thoreau, born David Henry Thoreau

"How hard it is to confess that we have spoken without thinking, that we have talked nonsense. How many a man says a thing in haste and heat, without fully understanding or half meaning it, and then, because he has said it, holds fast to it, and tries to defend it as if it were true! But how much wiser, how much more admirable and attractive it is when a man has the grace to perceive and acknowledge his mistakes! It gives us assurance that he is capable of learning, of growing, of improving, so that his future will be better than his past." - Henry Van Dyke

"Learning, to be of much use, must have a tendency to spread itself among the common people." - Henry Ward Beecher

"Much learning does not make a scholar." - Heraclitus or Heraclitus of Ephesus NULL

"Much learning does not teach understanding." - Heraclitus or Heraclitus of Ephesus NULL

"Why this reluctance to make the change? We fear the process of reeducation! Adults have invested endless hours of learning in growing accustomed to inches and miles; to February’s twenty-eight days; to “night” and “debt” with their silent letters; to qwertyuiop; and to all the rest. To introduce something altogether new would mean to begin all over, to become ignorant again, and to run the old, old risk of failing to learn." - Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

"Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know -- even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction -- than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too." - Isaac Asimov, born Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

"The trouble with most men of learning is that their learning goes to their heads." - Isaac Goldberg

"Most learning is not the result of instruction. It is rather the result of unhampered participation in a meaningful setting." - Ivan Illich

"No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his true and hidden strength." - Jack Kerouac, born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kérouac

"When we trust our brother, whom we have seen, we are learning to trust God, whom we have not seen." - James Freeman Clarke

"Learning is movement from moment to moment." -

"Real learning comes when the competitive spirit has ceased." -

"[We] can best understand learning as growth, an expanding of ourselves into the world around us. We can also see that there is no difference between living and learning, that living is learning, that it is impossible, and misleading, and harmful to think of them as being separate." - John Holt, fully John Caldwell Holt

"Man is by nature a learning animal. Birds fly, fish swim; man thinks and learns. Therefore, we do not need to “motivate” children into learning, by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do, and all we need to do, is bring as much of the world as we can into the school and the classroom; give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for; listen respectfully when they feel like talking; and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest." - John Holt, fully John Caldwell Holt

"The end of learning is to know God, and out of that knowledge to love Him, and to imitate Him, as we may the nearest, by possessing our souls of true virtue." - John Milton

"The end... of learning is to repair the ruins of our first parents by regaining to know God aright, and out of that knowledge to love him, to imitate him, to be like him, as we may the nearest by possessing our souls of true virtue, which being united to the heavenly grace of faith, makes up the highest perfection." - John Milton

"Enflamed with the study of learning, and the admiration of virtue; stirred up with the high hopes of living to be brave men, and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages." - John Milton