“Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.”
Confucius, c. 479 BC · Chinese teacher of the Spring and Autumn period
Chapter 5
On Learning
“Is it not pleasant to learn with a constant perseverance and application?”
Confucius, c. 479 BC · the opening line of the Analects
“A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.”
Solomon, c. 700 BC · traditional author of the book of Proverbs
“Who is wise? He who learns from every man.”
Ben Zoma, c. 130 AD · Tannaitic sage of the Mishnah
“For the mind does not require filling like a bottle, but rather, like wood, it only requires kindling to create in it an impulse to think independently.”
Plutarch, c. 100 AD · Greek biographer and moralist
“Learning must never cease. Blue comes out of the indigo plant, and the blue is deeper than the plant it came from.”
Xunzi, c. 250 BC · Chinese philosopher of the Warring States period
“The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.”
The Dhammapada, c. 300 BC · the earliest collected sayings of the Buddha
“I do not study in order to write, nor still less to teach, which in me would be boundless arrogance, but only to see whether by studying I may be less ignorant.”
Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, 1691 · Mexican nun and poet, defending a woman's right to study
“I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.”
Helen Keller, 1903 · deaf and blind from infancy, on the day language opened
“No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.”
Kahlil Gibran, 1923 · Lebanese American poet, from the chapter on teaching
“If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind.”
Kahlil Gibran, 1923 · Lebanese American poet, from the chapter on teaching
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