Carter G. Woodson Quotes

Knowledge is ancient error reflecting on its youth.

Textbooks must be constant over many years for students to trust the system. But if we say something is true today and deny it tomorrow, students will lose faith in us. Consistency is at a premium.

History is indeed the witness of the times, the light of truth.

Truth comes to us from the past, then, like gold washed down from the mountains.

The universe is a great university.

By academic freedom I understand the right to search for truth and to publish and teach what one holds to be true. This right implies also a duty: one must not conceal any part of what on has recognized to be true. It is evident that any restriction on academic freedom acts in such a way as to hamper the dissemination of knowledge among the people and thereby impedes national judgment and action.

Education is suffering from narration sickness.

What is really needed to make democracy function is not knowledge of facts, but right education.

Education is understanding relationships.

There is no such thing as education. The thing is merely a loose phrase for the passing on to others of whatever truth or virtue we happen to have ourselves. It is typical of our time that the more doubtful we are about the value of philosophy, the more certain we are about the value of education. That is to say, the more doubtful we are about whether we have any truth, the more certain we are (apparently) that we can teach it to our children.

Of course, you don't have to have a degree to be rich. You just have to have ideas. Maybe having a degree sets you back, for it stuffs you into tick-tock [the daily grind of work], and perhaps that stifles your creative mind. But the fact is that many millionaires have few educational qualifications of any kind at all. However, they still have knowledge. The difference is, they have knowledge they can sell, and others have the "common knowledge" of tick-tock, which isn't worth as much, if anything at all.

Schooling ain't life." "Ain't it?" she says, her eyebrows raising in mock surprise.

There is only one calamity: ignorance. And there is only one solution: enlightenment.

Supposing is good, but finding out is better.

preach, my dear Sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people.

If you do not value libraries then you do not value information or culture or wisdom. You are silencing the voices of the past and you are damaging the future.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

A few drops of science will often disinfect an entire barrel full of ignorance and prejudice.

Schools teach ignorance.

Education cannot be neutral. It is either positive or negative; either it enriches or it impoverishes; either it enables a person to grow or it lessens, even corrupts him. The mission of schools is to develop a sense of truth, of what is good and beautiful. And this occurs through a rich path made up of many ingredients. This is why there are so many subjects - because development is the results of different elements that act together and stimulate intelligence, knowledge, the emotions, the body, and so on.

Education is the miracle; I'm just the worker.

There is nothing more necessary than truth, and in comparison with it everything else has only secondary value. This absolute will to truth: what is it? Is it the will to not allow ourselves to be deceived? Is it the will not to deceive? One does not want to be deceived, under the supposition that it is injurious, dangerous, or fatal to be deceived.

Teachers are the agents through which knowledge and skills are communicated and rules of conduct enforced.

Fiction is Truth's elder sister. Obviously. No one in the world knew what truth was till some one had told a story.

The trend for documentaries will never go away, because everybody wants to learn about the world. The world is awful in parts, but there's always going to be briliant documentaries about it, and there's always going to be people who want to see them.