Over the coming months, this blog will give suggestions for how to become a “self-made scholar,” – a person who takes control of his or her own learning.
Schools can give you a lot of opportunities, but relying on schools to give you an education is ridiculous. I have a graduate degree, and I’ve learned more from library books and websites than I’ve ever learned in class.
But, don’t take my word for it. Check out these self-education quotes from some very perceptive thinkers:
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school,”
- Albert Einstein
“I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”
- Mark Twain
“Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing–the rest is mere sheep-herding.”
- Ezra Loomis Pound
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.”
- Jim Rohn
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.”
- Socrates
“The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.”
-Carl Rogers
“Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.”
- Isaac Asimov
“Just as eating against one’s will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.”
- Leonardo Da Vinci
“The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose. Occasionally some students do arrive for an education but rote and mechanical nature of the institution soon converts them to a less idealic attitude”
- Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintance
“Education is not a product: mark, diploma, job, money–in that order; it is a process, a never-ending one.”
- Bel Kaufman
“The secret of the man who is universally interesting is that he is universally interested.”
- William Dean Howells
“If you meet at dinner a man who has spent his life in educating himself - a rare type in our time … you rise from table richer, and conscious that a high ideal has for a moment touched and sanctified your days. But Oh! my dear Ernest, to sit next to a man who has spent his life in trying to educate others! What a dreadful experience that is!”
- Oscar Wilde
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
I just wanted to congratulate you on, and thank you for, what looks set to be a fantastic site. I’m going to go and dive straight into those resources now!
Thanks for the warm words Tenille. Good luck with your learning!
Fantastic.
This is a good philosophy . Especially where they say ” The idea that the majority of students attend a university for an education independent of the degree and grades is a hypocrisy everyone is happier not to expose…….”. In these days , this is becoming more and more real !
Great quotes. Here’s another:
“An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It’s being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” - Anatole France
Very helpful resource. I am compiling similar quotes at my self-education blog, Wide Awake Minds (www.wideawakeminds.com); here are a few links to thinkers I’ve collected so far:
Literary critic Northrop Frye: http://www.wideawakeminds.com/2009/07/ideas-from-northrop-fryes-on-education.html
Poet and Nobel Laureate Czeslaw Milosz: http://www.wideawakeminds.com/2009/07/czeslaw-milosz-on-curiosity-and.html
Linguist Jean Roemer: http://www.wideawakeminds.com/2009/07/jean-roemer-on-self-education.html
Keep up the great work, Jamie!
–Ryan
Wondeful and impackable collection. In fact helped in developing insight in tothe concept of Education.
I have alot of contempt for people who attend college with the MAIN view of getting a high paying careeer. Money money money !!!! Why has knowlegdge become instrumental instead of intrinsic ? Well , then again I have contempt for compulsory education as a whole. Truly the greatest university is a personal library. I have yet to hear a person tell me they’re going to college because the knowledge gives them piece of mind , and that the knowledg is good for its own sake instead of because they plan to make money off of it. I dont need an institution to verify that I have acquired a considerable amount of knowledge. But then again college is far to expensive and given to much credence. To hell with all compulsory education. How many Ph.D. students in comparative literature do you now who are getting the degree and have no intention of using it to make money as a university professor? People “know the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. Knowledge should FIRST be seen as a ends not a means. Peace of mind is the highest goal. Become an autodidact and lover of wisdom and knowledge. You don’t need to make lots of money to know you have value. It should’nt be all about degrees , money and image in the public eye - BUT it is.
great minds are not only to great people but to whoever believes in it, anyway how can one believe to posses a great mind?.
Great Blog. I hope you keep it up.
I have a BA in Philosophy and a MS in Tax Law and have always struggled with the idea that the years I spent in college was a marvelous waste of time. After college I finally had the chance to really read all the books that I was “forced” to study in school and within a year obtained more knowledge than I did in 6 years of college.
While I understand that some form of organized education is necessary to weed out the ones who care more about “getting by” and less about living a well rounded, educated life, if you really want to improve the self, don’t think you’ll find your goal in school. It ain’t there.
I’ve been into this concept for awhile.
It’s the only way people really learn anything.
Thanks for putting this together for people!