William James Quotes

... there are no chains so galling as the chains of ignorance--no fetters so binding as those that bind the soul, and exclude it from the vast field of useful and scientific knowledge. O, had I received the advantages of early education, my ideas would, ere now, have expanded far and wide; but, alas! I possess nothing but moral capability--no teachings but the teachings of the Holy Spirit.

I went to a lovely school, and I got an incredible education. And I actually think that my education is what really sets me apart, 'cause I'm very smart.

It's easier to learn things for life by the age of 12 and not the age of 18. This is just my guess.

I was really young when I was working on 'Freaks and Geeks.' In a lot of ways, that was the experience that informed a lot of what I've become, and I feel like every experience I have is in some way or another an extension of something that started there.

To be able to be caught up into the world of thought - that is being educated.

I am sure my fellow-scientists will agree with me if I say that whatever we were able to achieve in our later years had its origin in the experiences of our youth and in the hopes and wishes which were formed before and during our time as students.

How are men to be secured in any rights without instruction; how to be secured in the equal exercise of those rights without equality of instruction? By instruction understand me to mean knowledge - just knowledge; not talent, not genius, not inventive mental powers.

Minds ripen at very different ages.

I wished to have the time to put together a world view, but there was never enough time, and also, those who had it seemed to have had it from a very young age; they didn't begin at forty.

She live in a mindset that I could never move to

Consistency is the defense of a small mind

A baby has brains, but it doesn't know much. Experience is the only thing that brings knowledge, and the longer you are on earth the more experience you are sure to get.

A mind without instruction can no more bear fruit than can a field, however fertile, without cultivation.

Sometimes everything you need to know to be an actor in your mid-forties, you learn before you were 15 years old.

WE ARE ALL TRAPPED in our own way of thinking, trapped in our own way of relating to people. We get so used to seeing the world our way that we come to think that the world is the way we see it.

When a peasant begins to feel the need for instruction, he usually becomes fiercely calculating.

Most people know nothing about learning; many despise it. Dummies reject as too hard whatever is not dumb.

We feel that we have to be right so that we can feel good... The whole right and wrong business closes us down and makes our world smaller.

Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.

Those who are slow to know suppose that slowness is the essence of knowledge.

Education is the key. With a really good education, you have a much broader view of the world. Well-educated people can seek help for themselves. They can help others.

Education forms the common mind.

Man, he is constantly growing and when he is bound by a set pattern of ideas or way of doing things, that's when he stops growing

Education turns an empty mind into an open mind. It turns information into behavioural transformation

If the term education may be understood in so large a sense as to include all that belongs to the improvement of the mind, either by the acquisition of the knowledge of others or by increase of it through its own exertions, we learn by them what is the kind of education science offers to man. It teaches us to be neglectful of nothing - not to despise the small beginnings, for they precede of necessity all great things in the knowledge of science, either pure or applied.