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Education is one subject that elicits many comments from academic personalities, politicians, celebrities, and writers. It  often prompts observations ranging from praise to cynicism. With that, centuries of observations on the education system around the world have resulted in a fine collection of thought-provoking quotes on education.

Many people who have achieved success and fame in their lifetime are cynical about formal education. With experiential learning in tow, they have said interesting things on the impact of education on their lives. As English historian Edward Gibbon said, “The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except for those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous.” There are people who define clever people as individuals who largely educate themselves. Mark Twain is one classic writer who is known for his cynical views. He was quoted as saying, “First, God created idiots. That was just for practice. Then He created school boards.”

Some education quotes are ironic. This may result from frustration with the education system or on teaching methods used in schools. For instance, Roger Lewin said that in school, children are often given the answers to remember rather than problems to solve. This is perhaps a reaction to the pages of names and dates that students need to memorize for some subjects. Will Durant was quoted on his description of education as a progressive discovery of one’s ignorance. One well known American poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, was quoted as saying “We are shut up in schools and college recitation rooms for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a belly-full of words and do not know a thing.” As one interesting quote by former US President Theodore Roosevelt goes, “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.”

Still, many people believe in the value of education in terms of life opportunities and overall understanding of life. With the help of an eager and open mind, one tends to rationalize his skeptical attitude about his level of education. As William Feather said, education gives the ability to differentiate between what you know, what you don’t know, and what you still need to know. It is the knowing of information that allows you to get information. An educated man can easily entertain new ideas, he being a creature of wonder that forever strives to look for new knowledge and use it for the good of all. As another writer was quoted as saying, education is a way of making other people’s lives better by leaving your community and the world a better place than before.

While writers and personalities disagree on some points of education, they agree on one thing: Education fills the mind with the knowledge it needs and keeps the hunger for more knowledge afire.

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