George Saunders Quotes

We are all human and fall short of where we need to be. We must never stop trying to be the best we can be.

Man was created as a being who should constantly keep improving, a being who on reaching one goal sets a higher one.

A college education shows a man how little other people know.

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding.

I will never be satisfied. Life is one constant search for the betterment for me.

I wonder whether if I had an education I should have been more or less a fool that I am.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

If a man neglects education, he walks lame to the end of his life.

Be not content with what you have or are.

A man learns all his life and dies the day he thinks that he has learnt everything.

Luckily, I'm not educated. If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop.

It's a constant progression, and as long as you're constantly striving to be better, you're headed in the right direction.

No one but people like me can understand the importance of education.

I read books and talked to people. I mean that's kind of how one learns anything. There's lots of great books out there & lots of smart people.

Education, introspection, self-love and excellence are the only ways to overcome the wrath of ignorance

What makes us fully human is the relentless quest for making things a little bit better.

There are two extremes to be avoided: one is the attitude of contempt toward education, the other is the tragic snobbery of assuming that marching through an educational system is a sure cure for ignorance and mediocrity.

At present we educate people only up to the point where they can earn a living and marry; then education ceases altogether, as though a complete mental outfit had been acquired. ... Vast numbers of men and women thus spend their entire lives in complete ignorance of the most important things.

the idea of a finished human product not only appears presumptuous but even, in my opinion, lacks any strong appeal. Life is struggle and striving, development and growth - and analysis is one of the means that can help in this process. Certainly its positive accomplishments are important, but also the striving itself is of intrinsic value.

Reading is the way out of ignorance, and the road to achievement.

So much has happened in the past five years, I can't speak for the next five. What I want is to continue to grow. Because I am never satisfied; I always want more. I always want to get better. I always want to climb another step.

I'm not an educated man. I only know what I'm told, and I'm not told that much; I have no frame of reference for how to place things in history be a responsible leader. All I can do is be an artist.

I don’t really know what “intellectual” means, but if it means you’ve got a desire to learn, you’ve got a desire to look for things that haven’t been presented to you, then, maybe. I think that “intellectual” is quite an exclusive word. I think it’s just for anyone that has a thirst or a hunger to improve themselves, or a yearning to escape from somewhere to get to a better place.

If you don't educate yourself, this is an area of your life that it is a game.

I remembered a time when my grandmother had asked me to explain television to her - the guts, not the funny pictures. There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularized for the masses; they take years of skull sweat. This be treason in an age when ignorance has come into its own and one man's opinion is as good as another's. But there it is. As Star says, the world is what it is - and doesn't forgive ignorance.