QUOTES ON EDUCATION

He is to be educated because he is a man, and not because he is to make shoes, nails, and pins.

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842) U.S. Unitarian clergyman and writer.

Education is too important to be left solely to educators.

Francis Keppel (1916–1990) American educator, U.S. Commissioner of Education (1962–1965).

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people can be engaged in.
Abraham Lincoln, First Political Announcement, March 9, 1832 

Mr. Clay's lack of a more perfect early education, however it may be regretted generally, teaches at least one profitable lesson; it teaches that in this country, one can scarcely be so poor, but that, if he will, he can acquire sufficient education to get through the world respectably.
Abraham Lincoln,  Eulogy on Henry Clay, July 6, 1852 

If you think education is expensive - try ignorance.

Derek Bok

If all the rich and all of the church people should send their children to the public schools they would feel bound to concentrate their money on improving these schools until they met the highest ideals.

Susan Brownell Anthony (1820–1906) American civil rights leader.

In England … education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did, it would prove a serious danger to the upper classes, and would probably lead to acts of violence in Grosvenor Square.

Oscar Wilde (1856-1900) Irish poet and dramatist.

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.

Walter Bagehot (1826-77) English economist, political journalist, and critic. Physics and Politics, 1879.

The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.

Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) English philosopher, political theorist, and sociological theorist.

Education is not the filling a bucket but the lighting of a fire.

William Butler Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet, dramatist.

Plasticene and self-expression will not solve the problems of education. Nor will technology and vocational guidance; nor the classics and the Hundred Best Books.

Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) English novelist, essayist, critic.

The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done.

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) Swiss cognitive psychologist.

Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.

Marian Wright Edelman (1939-) American activist for the rights of children.

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.

Edmund S. Wilson (1895-1972) U.S. author, literary and social critic.

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Italian physicist and astronomer.

True education makes for inequality; the inequality of individuality, the inequality of success, the glorious inequality of talent, of genius.

Felix E. Schelling (1858-1945) American educator

Education: Being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't. It's knowing where to go to find out what you need to know; and it's knowing how to use the information once you get it.

William A. Feather (1889-1981) American publisher and author.

The modern child, when asked what he learned today, replies, "Nothing, but I gained some meaningful insights."

William E. ("Bill") Vaughan (1915–1977) American columnist and author.