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Learning proceeds until death and only then does it stop... Its purpose cannot be given up for even a moment. To pursue it is to be human, to give it up to be a beast. ~ Xun Zi
It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again; The never-satisfied man is so strange—if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms again for others. ~ Carl Friedrich Gauss
You, the common man, must become learned yourself, so that you will be misled no longer. ~ Thomas Müntzer

Learning is the acquisition and development of memories and behaviors, including skills, knowledge, understanding, values, and wisdom. It is the goal of education, and the product of experience.

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations · See also · External links

A

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  • Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
  • Having a global education and being a world citizen is the key element for peace and for all elements of progress outlined in the UN Charter. Indeed, that is the foundation for the necessary new skill-set at the conference table. Being able to look at the problems through the eyes of others reduces fears and misunderstandings that breed conflict and confusion. We must learn to work together; we must learn more about each other; and we must come to the table with resolve to solve those problems no single country can address... Through global education, we must prepare world citizens who understand the interconnected nature of our planet and who are willing to act on behalf of people everywhere. We each must spend more time learning about other cultures and other lands.
  • Justice weighs out learning to those who suffer.
    • Aeschylus, Agamemnon, in Early Greek Philosophy: Beginnings and Ionian Thinkers Loeb Classical Library Volume 525 (2016), p. 123
  • When you're through learning, you're through.
    • Anonymous, as quoted in "Weather Vane", National 4-H News (January 1951)
  • I believe that every human being with a physically normal brain can learn a great deal and can be surprisingly intellectual. I believe that what we badly need is social approval of learning and social rewards for learning.
    We can all be members of the intellectual elite and then, and only then, will a phrase like "America's right to know" and, indeed, any true concept of democracy, have any meaning.
  • O my God! What miseries and mockeries did I then experience when it was impressed on me that obedience to my teachers was proper to my boyhood estate if I was to flourish in this world and distinguish myself in those tricks of speech which would gain honor for me among men, and deceitful riches! To this end I was sent to school to get learning.

B

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  • To spend too much time in studies is sloth; to use them too much for ornament, is affectation; to make judgment wholly by their rules, is the humour of a scholar.
    • Francis Bacon, "Of Studies," in The Essayes or Counsels, Civil and Moral, of Francis Lord Verulam, Viscount St. Alban (1625) as quoted in Bacon's Essays (1892) p. 128
  • The world itself is a great fusing pot, out of which the One Humanity is emerging. This necessitates a drastic change in our methods of presenting history and geography. Science has always been universal. Great art and literature have always belonged to the world. It is upon these facts that the education to be given to the children of the world must be built - upon our similarities, our creative achievements, our spiritual idealisms, and our points of contact. Unless this is done, the wounds of the nations will never be healed, and the barriers which have existed for centuries will never be removed... Two major ideas should be taught to the children of every country. They are: the value of the individual and the fact of the one humanity.
  • One of our immediate educational objectives must be the elimination of the competitive spirit, and the substitution of the co-operative consciousness.
  • LEARNING, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.
    • Ambrose Bierce, The Cynic's Dictionary (1906); republished as The Devil's Dictionary (1911).
  • What is the real object of modern education? Is it to cultivate and develop the mind in the right direction; to teach the disinherited and hapless people to carry with fortitude the burden of life (allotted them by Karma); to strengthen their will; to inculcate in them the love of one’s neighbor and the feeling of mutual interdependence and brotherhood; and thus to train and form the character for practical life? Not a bit of it. And yet, these are undeniably the objects of all true education. No one denies it; all your educationalists admit it, and talk very big indeed on the subject. But what is the practical result of their action? Every young man and boy, nay, every one of the younger generation of schoolmasters will answer: “The object of modern education is to pass examinations,” a system not to develop right emulation, but to generate and breed jealousy, envy, hatred almost, in young people for one another, and thus train them for a life of ferocious selfishness and struggle for honors and emoluments instead of kindly feeling.
  • Children should above all be taught self-reliance, love for all men, altruism, mutual charity, and more than anything else, to think and reason for themselves. We would reduce the purely mechanical work of the memory to an absolute minimum, and devote the time to the development and training of the inner senses, faculties and latent capacities. We would endeavour to deal with each child as a unit, and to educate it so as to produce the most harmonious and equal unfoldment of its powers, in order that its special aptitudes should find their full natural development. We should aim at creating free men and women, free intellectually, free morally, unprejudiced in all respects, and above all things, unselfish.
    • H.P. Blavatsky, The Key to Theosophy p. 215, (1889)
  • Learning will be cast into the mire and trodden down under the hoofs of a swinish multitude.
    • Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
  • Out of too much learning become mad.
    • Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621), Part III, Section 4. Memb. 1. Subsec. 2.
  • In mathematics he was greater
    Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater;
    For he, by geometric scale,
    Could take the size of pots of ale.
  • And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
    The clock does strike by Algebra.
  • The languages, especially the dead,
    The sciences, and most of all the abstruse,
    The arts, at least all such as could be said
    To be the most remote from common use,
    In all these he was much and deeply read.

C

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  • "Then let every one of us, being warned by this sentence of the angel, acknowledge that he as yet cleaves to first principles, or, at least, does not comprehend all those things which are necessary to be known; and that therefore progress is to be made to the very end of life: for this is our wisdom, to be learners to the end."
  • The criminal misuse of time was pointing out the mistakes. Catching them―noticing them―that was essential. If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement. The part of the man's statement that was true, however, was about the uselessness of speaking up. If I know that the teacher is wrong, and say nothing, then I remain the only one who knows, and that gives me an advantage over those who believe the teacher.
  • In the old Ages, when Universities and Schools were first instituted, this function of the schoolmaster, to teach mere speaking, was the natural one. In those healthy times, guided by silent instincts and the monition of Nature, men had from of old been used to teach themselves what it was essential to learn, by the one sure method of learning anything, practical apprenticeship to it. This was the rule for all classes; as it now is the rule, unluckily, for only one class.
  • Without education, we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.
    • G.K. Chesterton, Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton : The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907 (1986), p. 71
  • "The true purpose of education," says one, "is to cherish and unfold the seed of immortality already sown within us; to develop to their fullest extent the capacities of every kind with which the God who made us has endowed us." He, therefore, who fixes a limit of any kind to his intellectual attainments dwarfs himself, and cramps the growth of that mind given to us by the Creator, and capable of indefinite expansion.
    • William H. Crogman, "The Importance of Correct Ideals" (1892), in Talks for the Times (1896), p. 282
  • When the learned take neither revelation nor reason for their guide, they fall into as great, and worse errors, than the unlearned; for they only make use of that system of Divine wisdom, which should guide them into truth, when they can find or pick out any thing that will suit their purpose, or that they can pervert to such—the very means of leading themselves and others into error.
    • Ottobah Cugoano, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery (1787), p. 30

G

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  • It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment. When I have clarified and exhausted a subject, then I turn away from it, in order to go into darkness again; The never-satisfied man is so strange—if he has completed a structure, then it is not in order to dwell in it peacefully, but in order to begin another. I imagine the world conqueror must feel thus, who, after one kingdom is scarcely conquered, stretches out his arms again for others.
  • Yet, he was kind, or, if severe in aught,
    The love he bore to learning was in fault;
    The village all declar'd how much he knew,
    'Twas certain he could write and cipher too.
  • While words of learned length and thundering sound
    Amaz'd the gazing rustics rang'd around.
  • And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew,
    That one small head should carry all it knew.
    • Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 215. Ed. 1822, printed for John Sharp. Other editions give "could" for "should," "brain" for "head".

H

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  • I have learnt much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from my students.
  • That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.
    • Hillel the Elder Lea P. Bahr (12 December 2013). "Beyond Pirkei Avos". The Jewish Press. Retrieved 15 March 2014.
  • "The most important thing any teacher has to learn, not to be learned in any school of education I ever heard of, can be expressed in seven words: Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners."
    • John Holt, in 'Growing Without Schooling' magazine #40.
  • Human learning, with the blessing of God upon it, introduces us to divine wisdom; and while we study the works of nature the God of nature will manifest himself to us; since, to a well-tutored mind, “The heavens,” without a miracle, “declare his glory, and the firmament showeth his handy-work.”
    • George Horne (bp. of Norwich.) (1799). Discourses on several subjects and occasions. Vol. 1,2, p. 357; As quoted in Allibone (1880)

I

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  • The best reason to go to school, even if you're a so-called teacher, is to find out how much you don't know.

K

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  • We need to learn from the most politically bold and creative among us. (We also need to offer concrete solidarity and support to those we learn from, lest learning from mean ripping off.)
    • Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz “Nine Suggestions For Radicals, or Lessons From the Gulf War” in The Issue is Power: Essays on Women, Jews, Violence and Resistance (1992)
  • The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.
    • B.B. King, quoted outside the Main Library in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, in The Charlotte Observer (5 October 1997) Page 2D

L

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  • The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. And then, just possibly, hopefully, it goes home, or on.
  • Earth and Sky, Woods and Fields, Lakes and Rivers, the Mountain and the Sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.
  • Now as Paul was saying these things in his defense, Festus said in a loud voice: “You are going out of your mind, Paul! Great learning is driving you out of your mind!” But Paul said: “I am not going out of my mind, Your Excellency Festus, but I am speaking words of truth and of a sound mind. For a fact, the king to whom I am speaking so freely well knows about these things; I am convinced that not one of these things escapes his notice, for none of this has been done in a corner. Do you, King A·grip′pa, believe the Prophets? I know that you believe.”

M

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  • Our learned ones would gladly like to give the witness of Jesus' spirit a higher education. They will completely fail in this because they are not educated enough to teach so that through their teachings the common man may be brought up to their level. Rather, the learned ones alone want to pass judgment on the faith with their stolen Scripture, although they are totally and completely without faith, either before God or before men. For everyone perceives and realizes that they strive for honours and worldly goods. Therefore, you, the common man, must become learned yourself, so that you will be misled no longer. The same spirit of Christ will help you in this which will mock our learned ones to their destruction.
    • Thomas Müntzer, "Exposure of False Faith" (1524), in Revelation and Revolution: Basic Writings of Thomas Müntzer (1993), p. 116

N

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  • If you desire ease, forsake learning.
If you desire learning, forsake ease.
How can the man at his ease acquire knowledge,
And how can the earnest student enjoy ease?

P

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  • The wish falls often warm upon my heart that I may learn nothing here that I cannot continue in the other world; that I may do nothing here but deeds that will bear fruit in heaven.
    • Jean Paul (1763–1825) Quote reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 366.
  • Socrates: Now do you imagine he would have attempted to inquire or learn what he thought he knew, when he did not know it, until he had been reduced to the perplexity of realizing that he did not know, and had felt a craving to know?
Meno: I think not, Socrates.
Socrates: Then the torpedo's shock was of advantage to him?
Meno: I think so.
Socrates: Now you should note how, as a result of this perplexity, he will go on and discover something by joint inquiry with me, while I merely ask questions.
  • Come to us, O gods of learning [θεοὶ λόγιοι], whoever you may be, in whatever number you may be, you who preside over science [ἐπιστήμας] and the truth, who distribute them to whomever you please, according to the decrees of the almighty father of all things, King Zeus.
    • Ἄγετε δή, ὦ θεοὶ λόγιοι, οἵτινές τε καὶ ὅσοι ἐστὲ, οἳ ἐπιστήμας τε καὶ δόξας ἀληθεῖς ἐπιτροπεύετε, νέμετὲ τε οἷςπερ ἂν ἐθέλητε κατὰ τοῦ μεγάλου πατρὸς τῶν τε πάντων βασιλέως Διὸς βουλάς.
    • Plethon, née Georgios Gemistos, Book of Laws, Book 1, Chapter 4: Prayer to the Gods of Learning, as translated by John Opsopaus, Ph.D.
  • A little learning is a dangerous thing;
    Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
    Their shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
    And drinking largely sobers us again.
  • Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield;
    Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
    The arts of building from the bee receive;
    Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave.
  • Ask of the Learn'd the way? The Learn'd are blind;
    This bids to serve, and that to shun mankind;
    Some place the bliss in action, some in ease,
    Those call it Pleasure, and Contentment these.

S

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  • Truth that has been merely learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth, a waxen nose; at best, like a nose made out of another’s flesh; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth acquired by thinking of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really belongs to us. This is the fundamental difference between the thinker and the mere man of learning.
  • Abraham Van Helsing: Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!

T

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  • "It is the prowess of scholars that meetings bring delight and departures leave memories."
  • "Why does one stop learning till he dies when it makes all lands and place his?"

X

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  • Learning proceeds until death and only then does it stop. ... Its purpose cannot be given up for even a moment. To pursue it is to be human, to give it up to be a beast.
    • Xun Zi, “An Exhortation to Learning,” E. Hutton, trans., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 258
  • The learning of the gentleman enters through his ears, fastens to his heart, spreads through his four limbs, and manifests itself in his actions. ... The learning of the petty person enters through his ears and passes out his mouth. From mouth to ears is only four inches—how could it be enough to improve a whole body much larger than that?
    • Xun Zi, “An Exhortation to Learning,” E. Hutton, trans., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy (2001), p. 259

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 434-37.
  • Much learning doth make thee mad.
    • Acts, XXVI. 24.
  • It is always in season for old men to learn.
  • The green retreats
    Of Academus.
  • Learning hath his infancy, when it is but beginning and almost childish; then his youth, when it is luxuriant and juvenile; then his strength of years, when it is solid and reduced; and lastly his old age, when it waxeth dry and exhaust.
  • Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
  • The king to Oxford sent a troop of horse,
    For Tories own no argument but force;
    With equal care, to Cambridge books he sent,
    For Whigs allow no force but argument.
  • And gladly wolde he lerne and gladly teche.
  • Doctrina est ingenii naturale quoddam pabulum.
    • Learning is a kind of natural food for the mind.
    • Cicero, Adapted from Acad. Quaest., 4. 41, and De Sen. 14.
  • When Honor's sun declines, and Wealth takes wings,
    Then Learning shines, the best of precious things.
  • Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
  • There is the love of knowing without the love of learning; the beclouding here leads to dissipation of mind.
    • Confucius, Analects, Book XVII, Chapter VIII.
  • Here the heart
    May give a useful lesson to the head,
    And learning wiser grow without his books.
    • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI. Winter Walk at Noon, line 85.
  • Next these learn'd Jonson in this list I bring
    Who had drunk deep of the Pierian Spring.
  • Consider that I laboured not for myself only, but for all them that seek learning.
    • Ecclesiasticus, XXXIII. 17.
  • Extremæ est dementiæ discere dediscenda.
    • It is the worst of madness to learn what has to be unlearnt.
    • Erasmus, De Ratione Studii.
  • There is no other Royal path which leads to geometry.
    • Euclid to Ptolemy I. See Proclus' Commentaries on Euclid's Elements, Book II, Chapter IV.
  • Learning by study must be won;
    'Twas ne'er entail'd from son to son.
    • John Gay, The Pack Horse and Carrier, line 41.
  • Whence is thy learning? Hath thy toil
    O'er books consum'd the midnight oil?
    • John Gay, Shepherd and Philosopher, line 15.
  • Walkers at leisure learning's flowers may spoil
    Nor watch the wasting of the midnight oil.
  • I've studied now Philosophy
    And Jurisprudence, Medicine
    And even, alas, Theology
    From end to end with labor keen;
    And here, poor fool; with all my lore
    I stand no wiser than before.
  • Men of polite learning and a liberal education.
  • A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.
  • Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes
    And pause awhile from Learning to be wise;
    Yet think what ills the scholar's life assail,
    Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
    See nations, slowly wise and meanly just,
    To buried merit raise the tardy bust.
    • Samuel Johnson, Vanity of Human Wishes, line 157. Imitation of Juvenal. Satire X. "Garret" instead of "patron" in 4th Ed. See Boswell's Life of Johnson (1754).
  • Nosse velint omnes, mercedem solvere nemo.
    • All wish to be learned, but no one is willing to pay the price.
    • Juvenal, Satires (early 2nd century), VII. 157.
  • The Lord of Learning who upraised mankind
    From being silent brutes to singing men.
  • Thou art an heyre to fayre lyving, that is nothing, if thou be disherited of learning, for better were it to thee to inherite righteousnesse then riches, and far more seemly were it for thee to haue thy Studie full of bookes, then thy pursse full of mony.
    • John Lyly, Euphues, Letters to a Young Gentleman in Naples named Alcius.
  • Il ne l'en fault pas arrouser, il l'en fault teindre.
    • Not merely giving the mind a slight tincture but a thorough and perfect dye.
    • Montaigne.
  • Ein Gelehrter hat keine Langweile.
  • Delle belle eruditissima, delle erudite bellissima.
    • Most learned of the fair, most fair of the learned.
    • Sannazarius, inscription to Cassandra Marchesia in an edition of the letter's poems. See Greswell, Memoirs of Politian.
  • Few men make themselves Masters of the things they write or speak.
  • No man is the wiser for his Learning * * * Wit and Wisdom are born with a man.
  • Homines, dum docent, discunt.
  • Well, for your favour, sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it; and for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity.
  • I trimmed my lamp, consumed the midnight oil.
  • I would by no means wish a daughter of mine to be a progeny of learning.
  • Learn to live, and live to learn,
    Ignorance like a fire doth burn,
    Little tasks make large return.
  • The King, observing with judicious eyes,
    The state of both his universities,
    To one he sent a regiment, for why?
    That learned body wanted loyalty;
    To the other he sent books, as well discerning,
    How much that loyal body wanted learning.
    • Joseph Trapp, Epigram. On George I.'s Donation of Bishop Ely's Library to Cambridge University.
  • Our gracious monarch viewed with equal eye
    The wants of either university;
    Troops he to Oxford sent, well knowing why,
    That learned body wanted loyalty;
    But books to Cambridge sent, as well discerning
    That that right loyal body wanted learning.
    • Another version of Trapp.
  • Our royal master saw with heedful eyes
    The state of his two universities;
    To one he sends a regiment, for why?
    That learned body wanted loyalty.
    To the other books he gave, as well discerning,
    How much that loyal body wanted learning.
    • Version attributed to Thomas Warton.
  • Ab uno disce omnes.
  • Disce, puer, virtutem ex me, verumque laborem;
    Fortunam ex aliis.
    • Learn, O youth, virtue from me and true labor; fortune from others.
    • Virgil, Æneid (29-19 BC), XII. 435.
  • Under the world view possessed by medieval scholars, the path of learning was a path of self-deprecation.
  • Aut disce, aut discede; manet sors tertia, cædi.
    • Either learn, or depart; a third course is open to you, and that is, submit to be flogged.
    • Winchester College. Motto of the Schoolroom.
  • Much learning shows how little mortals know,
    Much wealth, how little worldings can enjoy.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VI, line 519.
  • Were man to live coeval with the sun,
    The patriarch-pupil would be learning still.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VII, line 86.

See also

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