Anatole France Quotes

Going to school is not really education. It's really who's in front of the classrooms and who's endearing themselves to the kids and who's making the kids want to learn and who's inspiring them to be curious about any topic in the world.

Freedom from the desire for an answer is essential to the understanding of a problem.

The greatest gift is not being afraid to question.

I remain a humanist. We are a very curious race.

My education was the liberty I had to read indiscriminately and all the time, with my eyes hanging out.

The power to question is the basis of all human progress.

I love to doubt as well as know.

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

A curious mind is the most important attribute any man or woman can possess.

I think people have to sharpen their eyes and look. I always feel like a big sponge: I feel like I learn lots of things by osmosis, and I feel that I'm always absorbing. I mean, when people say, 'What is your inspiration?' I could throw up. I mean, I'm inspired by the fact I get up in the morning. And I'm still here.

The virtues of science are skepticism and independence of thought.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

I began even as a boy to realize how wide the world can be for a man of free intelligence.

In the enfranchised mind of the scientific naturalist, the usual feelings of repugnance simply do not exist. Curiosity conquers prejudice.

To teach one who has no curiosity to learn, is to sow a field without plowing it.

I believe that nothing should be taboo - no theory or prejudice should close one's mind to a discovery.

I always think there's something you can learn.

Any educated person recognizes that curiosity and creativity aren't just important; they are among the essential human activities.

To allow mystery, which is to say to yourself, 'There could be more...things we don't understand,' is not to damn knowledge....It is to permit yourself an extraordinary, freedom: someone else does not have to be wrong in order that you might be right...This tolerance for mystery invigorates the imagination; and it is the imagination that gives shape to the universe.

In teaching, you do not want to COVER things, you want to UNCOVER them. The best way to get good ideas is to have lots of ideas.

... there is no valid teaching from which there does not emerge something learned and through which the learner does not become capable of recreating and remaking what has been taught.

As it is, lovers of inquiry must follow their beloved wherever it may lead.

I don't feel frightened by not knowing things.

Free curiosity is of more value in learning than harsh discipline.

Enjoy mystery and speculation, but don't drift into dogma.