“Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”—Plato
“It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin. 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. ”—Albert Einstein
“Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.”—Leonardo da Vinci
“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better, if less ‘showily.’ Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself. . . Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.”—Anne Sullivan
“The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don’t know how to be submissive, and so on—because they’re dysfunctional to the institutions.”—Noam Chomsky
“The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent and originality.” —H. L. Mencken
“School is the advertising agency which makes you believe that you need the society as it is.”—Ivan Illich
“School prepares for the alienating institutionalization of life by teaching the need to be taught.”—Ivan Illich
“My grandmother wanted me to get a good education, so she kept me as far away from schools as possible.”—Margaret Mead
“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
“Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality.”—Beatrix Potter
“I hate, loathe and despise schools. . . School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way.”—Maurice Sendak
“Each day was a severe test for me, sitting in a dreadful classroom while the sun and fog played outside. Most of the information received meant absolutely nothing to me. For example, I was chastised for not being able to remember what states border Nebraska and what are the states of the Gulf Coast. It was simply a matter of memorizing the names, nothing about the process of memorizing or any reason to memorize. Education without either meaning or excitement is impossible. I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork. . . One day as I sat fidgeting in class the whole situation suddenly appeared very ridiculous to me. I burst into raucous peals of uncontrolled laughter, I could not stop. The class was first amused, then scared. I stood up, pointed at the teacher, and shrieked my scorn, hardly taking breath in between my howling paroxysms.”—Ansel Adams (who dropped out of school at age twelve and began taking photographs)
“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
“We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bellyful of words and do not know a thing.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I was undisciplined by birth, never would I bend, even in my tender youth, to a rule. It was at home I learned the little I know. Schools always appeared to me like a prison, and never could I make up my mind to stay there, not even for four hours a day, when the sunshine was inviting, the sea smooth, and when it was joy to run about the cliffs in the free air, or to paddle in the water.”—Claude Monet
“Oh, yes, I went to the white man’s schools. I learned to read from schoolbooks, newspapers, and the Bible. But in time I found that these were not enough. Civilized people depend too much on man-made pages. I turn to the Great Spirit’s book which is the whole of his creation. You can read a big part of that book if you study nature. You know, if you take all your books, lay them out under the sun, and let the snow and rain and insects work on them for a while, there will be nothing left. But the Great Spirit has provided you and me with an opportunity for study in nature’s university—the forest, the rivers, the mountains, and the animals, which include us.”—Tatanga Mani (White Buffalo)
“What does education often do? It makes a straight-cut ditch out of a free, meandering brook.”—Henry David Thoreau
“A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.”—Andre Gide
“Teacheria is contagious, but washing hands and vitamin C don’t help. Both my parents had the disease. I believe it is easily transmitted by modeling. ‘Let me tell you how it works,’ my father used to say and I had to listen quietly for his full explanation. Although I have Teacheria, I do not teach my children; I am clear that my drive to teach has nothing to do with their needs or preferences. Why should I interrupt their magical tour of this planet with my chatter?”—Naomi Aldort
“An educator never says what he himself thinks, but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is educating to hear.”—Nietzsche
“Most people, most of the time, learn most of what they know about science and technology outside of school.”—National Science Foundation
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”—Isaac Asimov
“Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned.”—Mark Twain
“Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.”—Robert Frost
“Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mediocre educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and educate yourself if you’ve got any guts.”—Frank Zappa
“I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That
doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old
people used to call 'mother wit' means intelligence that you had in your
mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.”—Maya Angelou
