The quote database

For we never can make anything our own except that which is truly related to us.

For joy is knowledge in its completeness, it is knowing by our whole being.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another--until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

the true realism, always and everywhere, is that of the poets: to find out where joy resides, and give it a voice far beyond singing

To this end, liberal and permanent provision should be made for the support of free schools by the State governments, and, if need be, supplemented by legitimate aid from national authority.

In the pursuit of even the highest branches of human inquiry, the commoner qualities are found the most useful

Such biographies increase a man's self-reliance by demonstrating what men can be, and what they can do; fortifying his hopes and elevating his aims in life.

Time should not be allowed to pass without yielding fruits, in the form of something learnt worthy of being known, some good principle cultivated, or some good habit strengthened.

Necessity, oftener than facility, has been the mother of invention; and the most prolific school of all has been the school of difficulty.

The goal of mankind is knowledge. That is the one ideal placed before us by Eastern philosophy.

Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.

In short, all artificial education ought to be an anticipation of natural education.

The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature.

Well, what I mean by Education is learning the rules of this mighty game.

Ignorance is visited as sharply as wilful disobedience

When I hear some of my young friends complain of want of sympathy and encouragement, I am inclined to think that my naval life was not the least valuable part of my education.

Every thought we think makes it necessary for us to think another thought; consciousness is continually expanding.

Every fact we learn leads us to the learning of another fact; knowledge is continually increasing.

Sensation is unorganized stimulus, perception is organized sensation, conception is organized perception, science is organized knowledge, wisdom is organized life: each is a greater degree of order, and sequence, and unity.

Let no youth have any anxiety about the upshot of his education, whatever the line of it may be.

The more of the details of our daily life we can hand over to the effortless custody of automatism, the more our higher powers of mind will be set free for their own proper work.

the great thing in all education is to make our nervous system our ally instead of our enemy

When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves.

My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit.

The perfect man employs his mind as a mirror. It grasps nothing: it refuses nothing. It receives, but does not keep.