“There is no lateness in life. Begin to pursue your dream.”
“We find paradise in every library and bookshop.”
“Why don’t you dare the impossible?”
“What if at school you had to take an art class in which you were only taught how to pain a fence? What if you were never shown the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci and Picasso? Would that make you appreciate art? Would you want to learn more about it? I doubt it...Of course this sounds ridiculous, but this is how math is taught.”
“Like taking a breath, learning was the simple and extraordinary result of being alive.”
“Curiosity is the great motivator of an education. It’s the how of learning: how we go from not knowing something to knowing it inside and out.”
“Consider, for a moment, how profound is an education: every human-made object in the world is the result of one. Every car, computer, particle accelerator, thatched hut, hairstyle, soufflé, piano concerto. These are the products not only of the skilled hands and nimble minds of their creators, but the result of whole traditions and systems of education. Change education, and you change the world.”
“I live within the world of books.”
“Ich kenne keine Feinde. Es gibt nur Menschen, die ich noch nicht kennengelernt habe.”
“Education is unfolding the wings of head and heart together. The job of a teacher is to push the students out of the nest to strengthen their wings.”
“My spirit gets nourished in faraway places. Sometimes I wonder if it s a biological need, perhaps a biological flaw, that compels me to seek the excitement and challenge that comes of being in a place where nobody knows me. Other times I think that my compulsion to settle into communities that are different from the ones I know is related to my passion for experiential learning. I learn best and most happily by doing, touching, sharing, tasting. When I m somewhere I ve never been before, learning goes on all day, every day.”
“Vân Uoc decided that she too would get to know the book inside out. And something miraculous happened when they were about a quarter of the way through reading it. After weeks of ploughing and hesitating, something clicked; she stopped stumbling over the unknown words and long sentences. Words magically started to reveal meaning, most of the time anyway, through context. And the sentences themselves stopped being obstacles and started telling a story. Her eyes were racing ahead; she was comprehending the shape and rhythm of the language.”
“There are three qualities that make someone a true professional. These are the ability to work unsupervised, the ability to certify the completion of a job or task and, finally, the ability to behave with integrity at all times.”
“Because a freeman ought not to be a slave in the acquisition of knowledge of any kind. Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
“Ask broad questions and you ll get more than one answer. Ask specific questions and you ll get no answer.”
“To learn new things one has to be open and vulnerable..”
“When he (Walter Cronkite) drank, he had an appetite for both history and political bullshit.”