Ken Robinson Quotes

Probably the most important piece of advice that I've ever gotten is to develop your mind. I left school very young and I always regretted it.

Those who have not distinguished themselves at school need not on that account be discouraged. the greatest minds do not necessarily ripen the quickest.

Stuff your brain with knowledge.

As a writer, I can live somewhat independently, occupying nooks and crannies and finding meaning there. I can even live in my mind a good portion of most days.

While one is young is the time to investigate, to experiment with everything. The school should help its young people to discover their vocations and responsibilities, and not merely cram their minds with facts and technical knowledge; it should be the soil in which they can grow without fear, happily and integrally.

The shape of my life is, of course, determined by many things; my background and childhood, my mind and its education, my conscience and its pressures, my heart and its desires.

I'm actually in a funny place now where I'm more secure than I've ever been. My career is more stable than it's ever been and that's nice, but it's put this thought in my mind where I'm like, "I have more to lose now." I still have to remind myself that I can't be quiet and back away from the things that have got me here, which is kind of doing it my way and not necessarily caring what the consequences are. A lot of that comes back to music.

No matter how vast your knowledge or how modest, it is your own mind that has to acquire it.

The way of learning is none other than finding the lost mind.

Books are but stepping stones to show you where other minds have been.

If I want to do the kind of work that I like to act in, I need to open my mind to it.

Jack, my 16 year old, was in knots a couple of months back, studying for Latin. I said, "Mate, you've got no interest in Latin. You don't want to go into it after, so drop it." He said, "No, I can't. I'm going to get bullied at school because all my mates are in there." There's a prime example of why no one cooks at school. You're studying Latin, you've got no interest.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and enlarge his talents.

I hate, loathe and despise schools.School is bad for you if you have any talent. You should be cultivating that talent in your own particular way.

Only a fool never changes his mind.

We need only travel enough to give our intellects an airing.

Character is a wish for a perfect education.

To be changed by ideas was pure pleasure. But to learn ideas that ran counter to values and beliefs learned at home was to place oneself at risk, to enter the danger zone. Home was the place where I was forced to conform to someone else’s image of who and what I should be. School was the place where I could forget that self and, through ideas, reinvent myself.

Education forms the common mind.

In a well-written book we are presented with the maturest reflections, or the happiest flights of a mind of uncommon excellence. It is impossible that we can be much accustomed to such companions without attaining some resemblance to them.

It is in fact a part of the function of education to help us escape, not from our own time - for we are bound by that - but from the intellectual and emotional limitations of our time.

There is actually a huge suicide problem in Palo Alto schools, so obviously not all is well in paradise. High expectations, and the pressure to achieve in a highly competitive world are too much for a lot of very promising young people. There have been something like ten youth suicides in Palo Alto in the past ten years. They usually step in front of the train that runs by the high school.

Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline.

In a narrow circle the mind grows narrow. The more one expands, the larger their aims.

School used to be an escape. Now it's just another place with too much pressure, too much confrontation, & so not enough joy.