Thomas Steinbeck Quotes

No man who worships education has got the best out of education... Without a gentle contempt for education no man's education is complete.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

The learned man knows that he is ignorant.

Men need knowledge in order to overpower their passions and master their prejudices.

Question everything. Learn something. Answer nothing.

The clever men at Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them know one half as much, as intelligent Mr. Toad.

Do not be an arrogant scholar, for scholarship cannot subsist with arrogance.

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

The people I go after are the false experts, those who do not accept the limits of their knowledge.

Our understanding of the world around us is constantly being redefined and expanded, and so therefore, it is wiser to be passionate about seeking for truth than knowing it.

My mother was a dominant force in my life. She had a very specific idea about education, which was: you should know everything about everything. It was quite simple. There was no exclusivity, and there really was no judgment.

Only Socrates knew, after a lifetime of unceasing labor, that he was ignorant. Now every high-school student knows that. How did it become so easy?

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

To seek understanding before taking action, yet to trust my instincts when action is called for. Never to avoid danger from fear, never to seek out danger for its own sake. Never to conform to fashion from fear of eccentricity, never to be eccentric from fear of conformity.

I'm very educated and can give you somewhat of a vocabulary, but I don't get to the philosophical side.

Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb about.

I'm not quite pompous enough to think of myself as an educator or a man capable of definitive refutation of falsehoods.

Take heed of critics even when they are not fair; resist them even when they are.

The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.

I know too much to be a sceptic and too little to be a dogmatist.

No man should escape our universities without knowing how little he knows.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

The rare person is still interested in new advances when they are adults. There is possibly a correlation with intelligence. In any case, you have to be fairly bright to keep learning and changing attitudes as you get older.