Educational

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

Example isn’t another way to teach, it is the only way to teach.

I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals.

I believe, indeed, that overemphasis on the purely intellectual attitude, often directed solely to the practical and factual, in our education, has led directly to the impairment of ethical values. I am not thinking so much of the dangers with which technical progress has directly confronted mankind, as of the stifling of mutual human considerations by a ‘matter-of-fact’ habit of thought which has come to lie like a killing frost upon human relations. Without ‘ethical culture’ there is no salvation for humanity.

I fully agree with you about the significance and educational value of as well as history and philosophy of science. So many people today - and even professional - seem to me like someone who has seen thousands of trees but has never seen a forest. A knowledge of the historic and philosophical background gives that kind of independence from prejudices of his generation from which most scientists are suffering. This independence created by philosophical insight is - in my opinion - the mark of distinction between a mere artisan or specialist and a real seeker after truth.

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

If someone feels that he has never made a mistake in his life, it only means that he has never tried anything new in his life.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty.

It is our American habit if we find the foundations of our educational structure unsatisfactory to add another story or wing.

Teaching should be such that what is offered is perceived as a valuable gift and not as a hard duty.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

The sole function of education…[is] to open the way to thinking and knowing, and the school, as the outstanding organ for the people’s education, must serve that end exclusively.

The value of a man should be seen in what he gives and not in what he is able to receive.

This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future.

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.