“Unless there is a difference of opinion, there is nothing to talk about. And when there is nothing to talk about, there’s nothing to learn.”
“What I’m saying is that we learn violence by watching others, by seeing it enshrined in institutions. Then, even without choosing it, it becomes normal to us, it even becomes part of who we are.”
Source: The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches From the Border
“We are what we learn. It often takes a long and painful time.”
Source: The Summer Before the Dark
“The best thing for disturbances of the spirit is to learn. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love and lose your moneys to a monster, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honor trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the poor mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.”
Source: The Sword in the Stone
“I can’t rock you on my lap, if you’re not here.”
Source: Daddy's Girl
“An education is truly “fitted for freedom” only if it is such as to produce free citizens, citizens who are free not because of wealth or birth, but because they can call their minds their own. Male and female, slave-born and freeborn, rich and poor, they have looked into themselves and developed the ability to separate mere habit and convention from what they can defend by argument. They have ownership of their own thought and speech, and this imparts to them a dignity that is far beyond the outer dignity of class and rank.”
“Of course, I am interested, but I would not dare to talk about them. In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself. In these days of specialization there are too few people who have such a deep understanding of two departments of our knowledge that they do not make fools of themselves in one or the other.”
Source: The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
“He landed on cheap shot, but I knocked him out of the tournament.”
Source: The Art of Learning: A Journey in the Pursuit of Excellence
“A love affair with knowledge will never end in heartbreak.”
“Failed efforts are there for you to examine and learn from.”
Source: The Clutter Breakthrough: Your Five-Step Solution to Freedom from Clutter Forever