Dennis Lindley Quotes

I really think that living is the process of going from complete certainty to complete ignorance.

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

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and there is no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty. People are terrified — how can you live and not know? It is not odd at all. You only think you know, as a matter of fact. And most of your actions are based on incomplete knowledge and you really don’t know what it is all about, or what the purpose of the world is, or know a great deal of other things. It is possible to live and not know.

There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children.

As a student I learned from wonderful teachers and ever since then I've thought everyone is a teacher.

We don't know all the answers. If we knew all the answers we'd be bored, wouldn't we? We keep looking, searching, trying to get more knowledge.

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.

I am certain there is too much certainty in the world.

I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say definitely what is and what is not possible.

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

We begin with the hypothesis that any subject can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage of development.

I always admired Niels Bohr for uttering his opinions like one perpetually groping and never like one in the possession of definite truth.

To me the offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet. That I haven’t understood enough. That I can’t know enough. That I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom… Those who tell you that you can only live by accepting an absolute authority: don’t think of that as a gift. Think of it as a poison chalice. Push it aside, however tempting it is. Take the risk of thinking for yourself. Much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way.

I want to teach. I want to speak. I want to travel.

Every day, teachers across the country excite their students with new opportunities and experiences.

Books are absent teachers.

We absolutely must leave room for doubt or there is no progress and no learning. There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt. People search for certainty. But there is no certainty.

The meanings get lost and the teachings get tossed and you don't know what you're going to do next.

All uncertainty is fruitfull ... so long as it is accompanied by the wish to understand

Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.

Teaching others, he corrected himself.

What do they teach them at these schools?

The more I see, the less I know.

Teaching is of more importance than urging.

No one learns as much about a subject as one who is forced to teach it.