Learning is not attained¹ by chance, it must be sought for with ardor² and attended to with diligence.

Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818), 1780

It is always safe to learn, even from our enemies; seldom safe to venture to instruct, even our friends.

Charles Caleb Colton (1780 - 1832)

Learning without thought is labor³ lost; thought without learning is perilous⁴.

Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC), The Confucian Analects

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you've understood all your life, but in a new way.

Doris Lessing

Only the curious will learn and only the resolute⁵ overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient.

Eugene S. Wilson

Whoso neglects learning in his youth,

Loses the past and is dead for the future.

Euripides (484 BC - 406 BC), Phrixus

Whoever ceases to be a student has never been a student.

George Iles

The wisest mind has something yet to learn.

George Santayana (1863 - 1952)

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Heraclitus (540 BC - 480 BC), On the Universe

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.

Lord Chesterfield (1694 - 1773)

We learn by example and by direct experience because there are real limits to the adequacy of verbal instruction.

Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, 2005

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing you can do is keep your mind young.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

Never learn to do anything: if you don't learn, you'll always find someone else to do it for you.

Mark Twain (1835 - 1910)

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity⁶. In the end there are no certain answers.

Martina Horner, President of Radcliffe College

Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Theodore Roosevelt (1858 - 1919)

Learning is not compulsory⁷... neither is survival.

W. Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993)

You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys⁸ if you have no one to lead you.

W. Somerset Maugham (1874 - 1965), The Razor's Edge, 1943