Education and Knowledge

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun, That will not be deep-search’d with saucy looks; Small have continual plodders ever won, Save base authority from others’ books. These earthly godfathers of heaven’s lights That give a name to every fixed star, Have no more profit of their shining nights Than those that walk and wot not what they are.

Live and die in Aristotle’s works.

The gretteste clerkes been noght the wisest men.

For hym was levere have at his beddes heed Twenty bookes, clad in blak or reed, Of Aristotle and his philosophie, Than robes riche, or fithele, or gay sautrie, But al be that he was a philosophre, Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre.

And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche.

A Clerk ther was of Oxenford also.

For out of olde feldes, as men seyth, Cometh al this newe corn fro yer to yere; 2 And out of olde bokes, in good feyth, Cometh al this newe science that men lere.

The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne, Th’ assay so hard, so sharp the conquerynge.

The ideal condition Would be, I admit, that men should be right by instinct; But since we are all likely to go astray, The reasonable thing is to learn from those who can teach.

An uneducated person accuses others when he is doing badly; a partly educated person accuses himself; an educated person accuses neither someone else nor himself.

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of the terms.

A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

In order to improve the mind, we ought less to learn, than to contemplate.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.

It’s not wise to violate the rules until you know how to observe them.

An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward.

A first-rate college library with a comfortable campus around it is a fine milieu for a writer. There is, of course, the problem of educating the young.

Writing fails because the writer does not know enough about his material. If he knows enough he will feel enough.

The editor is a specialist about reading. His specialty is what is sufficiently general and common between a possible readership and what the author has to say. The tool he works with is himself. If the author cannot reach him, he can’t reach the editor’s readership either.

All men begin their learning with Homer.

Always desire to learn something useful.

Learn to obey before you command.