Some Quotations

When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped. –– Marcel Achard Of course there's a lot of knowledge in universities: the freshmen bring a little in; the seniors don't take much away, so knowledge sort of accumulates... –– Anonymous Universities incline wits to sophistry and affectation. –– Francis Bacon Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a losttradition. –– Jacques Barzun Time is a great teacher, but unfortunately it kills all its pupils. –– Hector Louis Berlioz It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated. –– Alec Bourne, A Doctor's Creed It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what is known, but to question it. –– J. Bronowski, The Ascent of Man The best teacher is the one who suggests rather than dogmatizes, and inspires his listener with the wish to teach himself. –– Edward Bulwer-Lytton Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep. –– Albert Camus A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary. –– Thomas Carruthers Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere. –– Chinese Proverb A university is what a college becomes when the faculty loses interest in students. –– John Ciardi The authority of those who teach is often an obstacle to those who want to learn. –– Cicero The wit of a graduate student is like champagne. Canadian champagne. –– Robertson Davies Seeing much, suffering much, and studying much, are the three pillars of learning. –– Benjamin Disraeli The average Ph.D thesis is nothing but the transference of bones from one graveyard to another. –– Frank J. Dobie, A Texan in England, 1945 Education is the state-controlled manufacture of echoes. –– Norman Douglas How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it. –– Alexandre Dumas fils If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others. –– Tryon Edwards It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. –– Albert Einstein Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis. –– Ralph Waldo Emerson The whole art of teaching is only the art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards. –– Anatole France You are educated when you have the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or self-confidence. –– Robert Frost Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater. –– Gail Godwin The advantage of a classical education is that it enables you to despise the wealth which it prevents you from achieving. –– Russell Green I have a daughter who goes to SMU. She could've gone to UCLA here in California, but it's one more letter she'd have to remember. –– Shecky Greene Our schools have been scientifically designed to prevent over-education from happening. [...] The average American (should be) content with their humble role in life, because they're not tempted to think about any other role. –– William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education, 1889 Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not. –– Aldous Huxley Colleges are places where pebbles are polished and diamonds are dimmed. –– Robert G. Ingersoll, (seen attributed to "R.S. Ingersoll" - a typo?) If someone had told me I would be Pope one day, I would have studied harder. –– Pope John Paul I To teach is to learn twice. –– Joseph Joubert An understanding heart is everything is a teacher, and cannot be esteemed highly enough. One looks back with appreciation to the brilliant teachers, but with gratitude to those who touched our human feeling. The curriculum is so much necessary raw material, but warmth is the vital element for the growing plant and for the soul of the child. –– Carl Gustav Jung University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small. –– Henry Kissinger Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century. –– Bob Perelman A university professor set an examination question in which he asked what is the difference between ignorance and apathy. The professor had to give an A+ to a student who answered: I don't know and I don't care. –– Richard Pratt, Pacific Computer Weekly, 20 July 1990 Grad school is the snooze button on the clock-radio of life. –– John Rogers, comedian (who holds a graduate degree in physics) It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young. –– Bertrand Russell It is best to learn as we go, not go as we have learned. –– Leslie Jeanne Sahler A fool's brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence University education. –– George Bernard Shaw Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. –– B.F. Skinner The philosophy exam was a piece of cake –– which was a bit of a surprise, actually, because I was expecting some questions on a sheet of paper. –– Smith & Jones I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think. –– Socrates Education ... has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading. –– G. M. Trevelyan I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. –– Mark Twain The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires. –– William Arthur Ward If your professor wrote it, it's as near to the truth as you ever need to get. –– John Watson, University of Canterbury The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantlepiece forever. –– Virginia Woolf Quotations about Communication Elegance of language may not be in the power of all of us; but simplicity and straight forwardness are. Write much as you would speak; speak as you think. If with your inferior, speak no coarser than usual; if with your superiors, no finer. Be what you say; and, within the rules of prudence, say what you are. –– Alford I have often regretted my speech, never my silence. –– Anonymous The only weapon that becomes sharper with constant use is the tongue. –– Anonymous There's nothing wrong with having nothing to say –– unless you insist on saying it. –– Anonymous The best time to hold your tongue is the time you feel you must say something or bust. –– Josh Billings The true spirit of conversation consists in building on another man's observation, not overturning it. –– Edward Bulwer-Lytton I have noticed that nothing I have never said ever did me any harm. –– Calvin Coolidge Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. –– Gandhi Silence is argument carried out by other means. –– Ernesto "Che" Guevara When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen. –– Ernest Hemingway The only way to entertain some folks is to listen to them. –– Kin Hubbard Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of a great sculpture. –– Aldous Huxley Value your words. Each one may be the last. –– Stanislaw J. Lec I feel that if a person has problems communicating the very least he can do is to shut up. –– Tom Lehrer Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. –– Abraham Lincoln Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves. –– Abraham Lincoln Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee, and just as hard to sleep after. –– Anne Morrow Lindbergh No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you'll see why. –– Mignon McLaughlin He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. –– John Stuart Mill We can never be sure that the opinion we are endeavoring to stifle is a false opinion; and if we were sure,