E. O. Wilson Quotes

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.

You know how when you get older you actually want to learn? When I went to college, I wasn't as interested in the art history classes as I am now.

Freedom is the basic thing. Consciousness grows in freedom and starts dying, becomes paralyzed and crippled, when things are forced. And up to now, this has been done. This is the greatest crime that parents have always committed against children. They go on forcing the child.

It gave a tremendous level of self-confidence, that through exploration and learning one could understand seemingly very complex things in one's environment.

Nothing important can be taught, only learned.

I started realizing that I wasn't so dumb; rather, most people simply didn't know the answers to the questions that I was interested in-or they didn't care.

I love learning new things that will never be put to practical use.

The desire for self-improvement is vital. There is no point in pushing children; they need to be the ones who want to learn new skills.

Lessons are not given, they are taken.

I act because I have to, because I need to find out whether I can do it or not - that's what drives me and excites me and lights me up.

My own interest developed because I thought it was a fascinating subject and something I wanted to pursue.

True education is limited to those people who would die without knowing, whereas the masses in the institutions are merely going through the motions, for education is a way of living.

I was on my own at Wellesley, surrounded by a lot of young women who were motivated and intellectually curious. I started to read because I was required to do so for class, but I soon found myself enjoying the seclusion of the library. I came to see reading as an important way to learn about people, including myself.

We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.

Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.

I wouldn't presume to know something, but I have lots to learn and that's what I attempt to do through my work.

All learning is in the learner, not in the teacher.

I want people to believe in themselves. I want intellectual curiosity. I want someone who realizes that they don't know it all and that they're dying to learn.

I dropped out of school, but I didn't drop out of life. I would leave the house each morning and go to the main branch of the Carnegie Library in Oakland where they had all the books in the world... I felt suddenly liberated from the constraints of a pre-arranged curriculum that labored through one book in eight months.

I don't like books that seem to want to teach me things. Which is not to say that one doesn't learn from books - but you do your own learning in your own way.

The primary motivation for me is to learn.

I just follow the subjects I'm interested in.

I don't necessarily want a higher education, I want a wider education. I want to know everything and experience everything.

When you know your self-worth, and you read and you ask questions and you study and you travel, you become free.

We learn best when we're intrinsically motivated - that is, when we try something new for the sheer enjoyment of the experience.