Neil Postman Quotes

All learning is in the learner, not in the teacher.

Where my reason, imagination or interest were not engaged, I would not or I could not learn.

To focus on discipline is to ignore the real problem: We will never be able to get students (or anyone else) to be in good order if, day after day, we try to force them to do what they do not find satisfying.

I don't think people do anything out of fear very well. So I think the only choice is to have them intrinsically motivated.

Motivation is the art of getting people to do what you want them to do because they want to do it.

Free curiosity has greater power to stimulate learning than rigorous coercion. Nevertheless, the free ranging flux of curiosity is channeled by discipline under Your Law.

Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.

Motivation is like love and happiness. It's a by-product. When you're actively engaged in doing something, it sneaks up and zaps you when you least expect it.

Being relatively unmoved by rewards gives you the incalculable power to go your own way.

That is the way to learn the most, that when you are doing something with such enjoyment that you don't notice that the time passes.

I think if you don't have it [desire], you're not going to be pushed into anything. You've got to want to do something.

Learning of all kinds goes on best, lasts best, and tends to lead itself on more when it grows out of a real focus of interest in the learner.

The motivation is doing for doing, not [for] having done.

The hardest thing to do is work hard when no one is watching.

We must clearly understand that when we give the child freedom and independence, we are giving freedom to a worker already braced for action, who cannot live without working and being active.

Motivation is an inner force that compels behavior.

The hardest-working people don't work hard because they're disciplined. They work hard because working on an exciting problem is fun.

There are parents, siblings, teachers and friends, but counting on them to motivate you isn't fair. They've all got their own lives, and while the may be able to help you out, if you can motivate yourself, then you're golden.

Life is much more interesting when you make a little bit of effort.

Without your involvement you can't succeed. With your involvement you can't fail.

If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

Children will learn to do what they want to learn to do.

When you learn through coding, [you're] coding to learn. You're learning it in a meaningful context, and that's the best way of learning things.

Men work harder and more readily when they labor on that which is their own.

All successes begin with Self-Discipline. It starts with you.