Learning

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.

Sourced

  • 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.
  • "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."
  • I have learnt much from my teachers, more from my colleagues, and most from my students.
  • "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.
  • A little learning is a dang'rous thing;
    Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring;
    There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
    And drinking largely sobers us again.
  • "The secret waits for eyes unclouded by longing."
    • Tao Te Ching
  • "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?"

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

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.
    • Francis Bacon, Essays Civil and Moral, Of Vicissitude of Things.
  • 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.
    • Edward Cocker, Urania (1670).
  • 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.
  • 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".
  • Men of polite learning and a liberal education.
  • 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, 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.
  • Ils n'ont rien appris, ni rien oublie.
  • 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.
  • 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.
    • Men learn while they teach.
    • Seneca, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, VII.
  • 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.
  • 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.
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Unsourced

  • "Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence." ~Abigail Adams, 1780.
  • "A learning experience is one of those things that says, 'You know that thing you just did?' Don't do that.'" ~Douglas Adams
  • "The thing we tell of can never be found by seeking, yet only seekers find it." ~Bayazid Bistami.
  • "I suppose it is because nearly all children go to school nowadays, and have things arranged for them, that they seem so forlornly unable to produce their own ideas." ~Agatha Christie.
  • "I've known joy and sorrow, gladness in achieving a dream and the frustration that comes with failure. I've known what it is to feel like the world is falling around you and what it is to feel as though nothing could ever go wrong. I've known all these things and, while I've learned much from these experiences, I still haven't learned all that I can about them." -A. Curry
  • "Just as eating against one's will is injurious to health, so study without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in." ~Leonardo Da Vinci
  • "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come to the conclusion that the gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge." ~Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
  • "Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world." ~Albert Einstein (1879-1955).
  • "It's taken me all my life to learn what not to play." ~Dizzy Gillespie (1917-1993).
  • "A man spends the first year of his life learning that he ends at his own skin, and the rest of his life learning that he doesn't" ~Saul Gorn
  • "Learning is like a ladder. In order to reach the top rung, to create the next revolutionary idea, to dream up an epic adventure, we must first step on the bottom rung and learn our ABCs." ~Alex Hope
  • "Enlightenment is intimacy with all things." ~Jack Kornfield
  • "The adventure of knowledge is just as important as the knowledge of adventure." ~Delvin Lee
  • "If an angel were to tell us something of his philosophies, I do believe some of his propositions would sound like 2 x 2 = 13." ~Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
  • "To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand." ~José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955).
  • "First, master your instrument. Then forget all that #*$&%& and play!" ~Charlie Parker
  • "Sure, you might learn something new every day... but you'll never remember it all." ~Keelan Rantanen
  • "For every person who wants to teach there are approximately thirty who don't want to learn - much." ~W.C. Sellar and R.J. Yeatman
  • "Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye." ~Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851).
  • "My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself." ~George Bernard Shaw
  • "It is wisdom that is seeking for wisdom." ~Shunryu Suzuki.
  • "The more we live by our intellect, the less we understand the meaning of life." ~Leo Tolstoy
  • "Education that consists in learning things and not the meaning of them is feeding upon the husks and not the corn." ~Mark Twain
  • "It is looking at things for a long time that ripens you and gives you a deeper understanding." ~Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890).
  • "At the moment you are most in awe of all there is about life that you don't understand, you are closer to understanding it than at any other time." ~Jane Wagner
  • "A samurai once asked Zen Master Hakuin where he would go after he died. Hakuin answered 'How am I supposed to know?'
'How do you know? You're a Zen master!' exclaimed the samurai.
'Yes, but not a dead one,' Hakuin answered." ~Zen mondo
  • "The ten thousand questions are one question. If you cut through the one question, then the ten thousand questions disappear." ~Zen saying
  • "If you don't crack the shell, you can't eat the nut."
    • * Persian Proverb
  • To look for something meaningful is the begining of a life long search.
    • * Anonymous.
  • You learn when you understand. You understand when you learn.
    • * Anonymous.
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Last modified on 26 April 2013, at 12:19