All that we know is nothing can be known.
—Lord Byron, 1812Quotes
Knowledge is an ancient error reflecting on its youth.
—Francis Picabia, 1949The period of a [Persian] boy’s education is between the ages of five and twenty, and he is taught three things only: to ride, to use the bow, and to speak the truth.
—Herodotus, c. 440 BCIf the heavens were all parchment, and the trees of the forest all pens, and every human being were a scribe, it would still be impossible to record all that I have learned from my teachers.
—Jochanan ben Zakkai, c. 75Anyone who has passed through the regular gradations of a classical education, and is not made a fool by it, may consider himself as having had a very narrow escape.
—William Hazlitt, 1821I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That’s what sitting on your ass does to your face.
—Leonard Cohen, 1970Give us the child for eight years and it will be a Bolshevist forever.
—Vladimir Lenin, 1923A whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
—Herman Melville, 1851That which is evil is soon learned.
—John Ray, 1670A fool’s brain digests philosophy into folly, science into superstition, and art into pedantry. Hence university education.
—George Bernard Shaw, 1903Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing—the rest is mere sheep herding.
—Ezra Pound, 1934The Romans would never have found time to conquer the world if they had been obliged first to learn Latin.
—Heinrich Heine, 1827In large states public education will always be mediocre, for the same reason that in large kitchens the cooking is usually bad.
—Friedrich Nietzsche, 1878