This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers." - Richard Bach, fully Richard David Bach
"On his deathbed, Aldous Huxley reflected on his entire life’s learning and then summed it up in seven simple words: “Let us be kinder to one another.”" - Robin Sharma
"Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty." - Roger Ascham
"Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty, and learning teacheth safely, when experience maketh more miserable than wise." - Roger Ascham
"Addictive spirituality creates dependence in the practitioner (frequently to authoritarian leaders and their communities), an avoidance of personal responsibility, and loss of individuality through social controls, such as fear, guilt, or greed for power or bliss. It also tends to suppress rational inquiry into the teachings. Healthy spirituality, on the other hand, supports the practitioner's freedom, autonomy, self-esteem, and social responsibility. It is based on experience, rather than belief or dogma; it does not create idols out of spiritual teachers; and it empowers students by emphasizing democratic forms of learning and teaching, rather than the authoritarian model that has dominated spiritual life for millennia." - Ronald S. Miller
"Most learning consists of extended plateau periods in which we solidify progress through repetitive activity, followed by little spurts of improvement... With repeated practice, we give up our restless search for happiness in the next moment and learn that by inhabiting each moment with full awareness, we experience a deepening sensory aliveness and richness." - Ronald S. Miller
"What would learning do without love? It would puff up. And love without learning? It would go away." - Saint Bernard of Clairvaux NULL
"In religion, as in human learning, we need a gradual introduction, beginning by the more easily learned matters and the first elements. The Creator comes to our aid so that our eyes, accustomed to darkness, may be gradually opened to the full light of truth." - Saint Gregory, aka Pope Gregory I, St. Gregory the Dialogist, "Gregory the Great" NULL
"Anyone who stops learning is old, whether this happens at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps on learning not only remains young, but becomes constantly more valuable regardless of physical capacity." - Samuel Ullman
"Learning must be sought, it will not come of itself." - Simeon ben Lakish, or Shimon ben Lakish or Reish Lakish
"When two merchants exchange goods, each one surrenders part of his stock; but when two students exchange instruction, each one retains his own learning and acquires also the other's. Is there a bigger bargain than this?" - Simeon ben Lakish, or Shimon ben Lakish or Reish Lakish
"We find in God all the excellences of light, truth, wisdom, greatness, goodness and life. Light gives joy and gladness; truth gives satisfaction; wisdom gives learning and instruction; greatness excites admiration; goodness produces love and gratitude; life gives immortality and insures enjoyment." - William Jones, fully Sir William Jones of Nayland, aka Trinity Jones
"Learning passes for wisdom among those who want both." - William Temple, fully Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet
"A man, though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind." - Sophocles NULL
"He who has much learning but no good deeds is like an unbridled horse, that throws off the rider as soon as he mounts." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"He who adds not to his learning diminishes it." - Talmud or The Talmud NULL
"A humble knowledge of thyself is a surer way to God than a deep search after learning." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"That learning which thou gettest by thy own observation and experience, is far beyond that which thou gettest by precept; as the knowledge of a traveler exceeds that which is got by reading." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"The highest and most profitable learning is the knowledge of ourselves. To have a low opinion of our own merits, and to think highly of others, is an evidence of wisdom. All men are frail, but thou shouldst reckon none so frail as thyself." - Thomas Kempis, aka Thomas à Kempis, Thomas von Kempen, Thomas Haemerkken or Hammerlein or Hemerken or Hämerken
"Habit and imitation - there is nothing more perennial in us than these two. They are the source of all working, and all apprenticeship, of all practice, and all learning, in this world." - Thomas Carlyle
"Learning hath gained most by those books by which printers have lost." - Thomas Fuller
"There is much more learning than knowing in the world." - Thomas Fuller
"Go without expectation, for expectation can become a rut that will keep you from your real path of learning." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"To dismiss anyone as valueless, especially the old ones, is to throw away the wisdom of a life; it robs some of learning and others of purpose - and runs contrary to the underlying oneness of the natural order, which tells us that every part of nature has a reason, a purpose for being." - Tom Brown, Jr.
"Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival." - W. Edwards Deming, fully William Edwards Deming
"The art of awareness is the art of learning how to wake up to the eternal miracle of life with its limitless possibilities." - Wilferd Peterson, fully Wilferd Arlan Peterson
"Learning is its own exceedingly great reward." - William Hazlitt
"That which any one has been long learning unwillingly, he unlearns with proportionate eagerness and haste." - William Hazlitt
"Learning is its own exceeding great reward." - William Hazlitt
"Learning is but an adjunct to ourself, and where we are our learning likewise is." - William Shakespeare
"Learning - learning - learning: that is the secret of Jewish survival." - Ahad HaAm, pen name, born Asher Zvi Hirsch Ginsberg
"For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy. " - Bertrand Russell, fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
"I have come to feel that the only learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered, self-appropriated learning. " - Carl Ransom Rogers
"I have no patience with the stupidity of the average teacher of grammar who wastes precious years in hammering rules into children's heads. For it is not by learning rules that we acquire the powers of speaking a language, but by daily intercourse with those accustomed to express themselves with exactness and refinement and by copious reading of the best authors. " - Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, sometimes known as Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam
"In university they don’t tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools. " - Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
"That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all of your life, but in a new way." - Doris Lessing, fully Doris May Lessing, born Doris May Tayler
"If we see the universe as not simply a bunch of dead matter and empty space but actually a living system, then our story may well be one of learning how to live together in a living universe. If we don't have a story to guide us into the future, we're going to pull back into our smaller life stories of the past--stories of nationalism, of ethnic groups, of tribal groups, of geographic groups--and instead of pulling together in cooperation we're going to pull apart in conflict. What I am suggesting is to step back and see the universe as our original, larger home. If we are going to pull together as a human family for a promising future, this is an inclusive project; no one is left out." - Duane Elgin
"Whose neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future. " - Euripedes NULL
"The greatest error of all the rest is the mistaking or misplacing of the last or farthest end of knowledge: for men have entered into a desire of learning and knowledge, sometimes upon a natural curiosity and inquisitive appetite; sometimes to entertain their minds with variety and delight; sometimes for ornament and reputation; and sometimes to enable them to victory of wit and contradiction; and most times for lucre and profession; and seldom sincerely to give a true account of their gift of reason, to the benefit and use of men: as if there were sought in knowledge a couch whereupon to rest a searching and restless spirit; or a tarrasse, for a wandering and variable mind to walk up and down with a fair prospect; or a tower of state, for a proud mind to raise itself upon; or a fort or commanding ground, for strife and contention; or a shop, for profit or sale; and not a rich storehouse, for the glory of the Creator and the relief of man's estate." - Francis Bacon
"A power struggle collapses when you withdraw your energy from it. Power struggles become uninteresting to you when you change your intention from winning to learning about yourself." - Gary Zukav
" The love of money and the love of learning rarely meet." - George Herbert
"Sanity was statistical; it was merely a question of learning to think as they thought. " - George Orwell, pen name of Eric Arthur Blair
"For children, learning is never without emotional overtones. Whenever a teacher ignores the emotions and resorts to logical explanations, learning limps to a halt." - Haim Ginott, fully Haim G. Ginott, orignially Ginzburg
"Corrective learning begins with the awakening of spirit, and the turning away from belief in physical sight." - Helen Schucman, born Helen Cohn
"Seneca closed the vast circle of his knowledge by learning that a friend in power was a friend lost. " - Henry Adams, aka Henry Brooks Adams
"The all-round liberally educated man, from Paleolithic times to the time when the earth shall become a cold cinder, will always be the same, namely, the man who follows his standards, of truth and beauty, who employs his learning and observation, his reason, his expression, for purposes of production, that is, to add something of his own to the stock of the world's ideas." - Henry Fairfield Osborn