James Madison Quotes

Education is the single most important job of the human race.

Where Schools are not vigorously and Honourable Encouraged, whole Colonies will sink apace; into a Degenerate and Contemptible Condition, and at last become horribly Barbarous

Upon the progress of knowledge the whole progress of the human race is immediately dependent: he who retards that, hinders this also.

It is the object of learning, not only to satisfy the curiosity and perfect the spirits of ordinary men, but also to advance civilization.

There is an old saying that the course of civilization is a race between catastrophe and education. In a democracy such as ours, we must make sure that education wins the race.

Today and always, there will be an obligation to pass on to the new generation the tradition of liberal scholarship - scientific or in the humanities - and to bring the understanding of things and human actions to everyone.

Since the Renaissance, a concept called 'progress' has been baked into our society. Progress - founded on an accumulation of knowledge through experience (and in the case of science, through experiment). To build on the past rather than endlessly relive it. That's what separates us from the beasts.

Upon the education of the people of this country the fate of this country depends.

They greatly respected scholarship in itself, but they also impressed upon us that there were great opportunities available for those who were well educated. I received my primary and secondary education in Chicago.

The function of the university is not simply to teach bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools or to be a centre of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms the secret of civilization.

This great Western institution, the university, dominates the world today more than any other institution: more than the church, more than the government, more than all other institutions. All the leaders of government are graduates of universities, or at least of secondary schools or colleges whose administrators and teachers are themselves graduates of universities….professionals—doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc. have all passed through the mill of the secondary school, the college and the university. And the men of the media are university trained

The very first instrument for the improvement of the condition of men is knowledge.

Universities are good at long term thinking. Of the 85 institutions in the world that were in existence 500 years ago, 70 of them are universities.

Universities are meant to pass the torch of civilization.

Among the first, perhaps the very first, instrument for the improvement of the condition of men is knowledge, and to the acquisition of much of the knowledge adapted to the wants, the comforts, and enjoyments of human life public institutions and seminaries of learning are essential.

The profuseness of the Arabian learning, the multiplicity of the departments into which it entered, its zeal, the enormous proportions of the resulting literature, the vast libraries, the schools, the lecture rooms with their thousands of students, the universities, the institutions devoted to special sciences, the observatories and laboratories so royally equipped, the schools of logic and grammar, the whole attractive republic of letters, in which princes mingled with the sons of tradesmen or mechanics, while court favorites vied with impoverished authors for the honors of literature, all the ardor of a great intellectual movement passing before our eyes under Oriental guise, dispose the mind to enthusiastic judgments.

I studied at Howard. I studied at Oxford.

In India, knowledge has always been considered more valuable than power, fame or riches. In our tradition, educational institutions are respected as temples of learning.

My family has always valued my education.

To me, education is not a commodity. It is a public good, essential to any society with a claim to being civilised.

I hope the necessity will at length be seen of establishing institutions, here as in Europe, where every branch of science, useful at this day, may be taught in it's highest degrees.

I really do believe that education, despite this massive potential in transforming human lives, has not received the kind of attention that people should have given to it.

Higher education holds itself out as a kind of universal church, outside of which there is no salvation.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American's capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

The more educated you get, the better shot you have to get it right, but if you're really trying something different, it's a challenge every time.