Ameen Rihani Quotes

In truth, the care and expense of our fathers aims only at furnishing our heads with knowledge; of judgement and virtue, little news.

Virtue is something you have to get good at, like playing the trombone or tolerating bores at parties. Being a virtuous human being takes practice; and those who are brilliant at being human (what Christians call the saints) are the virtuosi of the moral sphere - the Pavarottis and Maradonas of virtue.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

Education without morals is like a ship without a compass, merely wandering nowhere.

The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things — not merely industrious, but to love industry — not merely learned, but to love knowledge — not merely pure, but to love purity — not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice.

Education has for its object the formation of character.

The worst education which teaches self-denial, is better than the best which teaches everything else, and not that.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

Unless education promotes character making, unless it helps men to be more moral, more just to their fellows, more law abiding, more discriminatingly patriotic and public spirited, it is not worth the trouble taken to furnish it.

There is a good ear, in some men, that draws supplies to virtue out of very indifferent nutriment.

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile.

No man is born wise; but wisdom and virtue require a tutor; though we can easily learn to be vicious without a master.

True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.

I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war.

True beauty lies in true education.

Liberal education develops a sense of right, duty and honor; and more and more in the modern world, large business rests on rectitude and honor as well as on good judgment.

The first duty of a university is to teach wisdom, not trade; character, not technicalities.

Character cannot be summoned at the moment of crisis if it has been squandered by years of compromise and rationalization. The only testing ground for the heroic is the mundane. The only preparation for that one profound decision which can change a life, or even a nation, is those hundreds of half-conscious, self defining, seemingly insignificant decisions made in private. Habit is the daily battleground of character.

Where there is no temptation, there is no virtue.

We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character-that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.

We need to provide an education which teaches crit­ical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.

Literary education is of no value, if it is not able to build up a sound character.

Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes man happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.

Above all things, lose no occasion of exercising your dispositions to be grateful, to be generous, to be charitable, to be humane, to be true, just, firm, orderly, courageous, etc. Consider every act of this kind as an exercise which will strengthen your moral faculties and increase your worth.

We must have life building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas.