Timothy Leary Quotes

The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.

We are dealing with the best-educated generation in history. But they've got a brain dressed up with nowhere to go.

Well, the fact is that one imagination is critically important, and if you have had your imagination stimulated by what is basically a variety of subjects, you are much more amenable to accepting, to understanding and interacting with the realities of the world.

I feel, sometimes, as the renaissance man must have felt in finding new riches at every point and in the certainty that unexplored areas of knowledge and experience await at every turn.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.

The least learned, for the most part, have been always most ready to write.

You have to get a little untrapped from too much prior knowledge.

It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.

A recently reprinted memoir by Frederick Douglass has footnotes explaining what words like 'arraigned,' 'curried' and 'exculpate' meant, and explaining who Job was. In other words, this man who was born a slave and never went to school educated himself to the point where his words now have to be explained to today's expensively under-educated generation.

When you give your children knowledge, you are telling them what to think. When you give your children wisdom, you do not tell them what to know, or what is true, but rather, how to get to their own truth.

Uneducated people are unfortunate in that they do grasp complex issues, educated people, on the other hand, often do not understand simplicity, which is a far greater misfortune.

We are starving for education... it's like a precious gift. It's like a diamond.

Between the semi-educated, who offer simplistic answers to complex questions, and the overeducated, who offer complicated answers to simple questions, it is a wonder that any questions get satisfactorily answered at all.

People don't want children to know what they need to know. They want their kids to know what they ought to need to know. If you're a teacher you're in a constant battle with mildly deluded adults who think the world will get better if you imagine it is better. You want to teach about sex? Fine, but only when they're old enough to do it. You want to talk politics? Sure, but nothing modern. Religion? So long as you don't actually think about it. Otherwise some furious mob will come to your house and burn you for a witch.

I mean, how would anyone learn anything if they weren't curious? How would scientists make discoveries? -- We all have the right to be different, don't we?

Curiosity illuminates the correct path to anything in life. If you're not curious, that's when your brain is starting to die.

As countries get rich they start increasing education and the very educated people tend to not like trial and error, because they think they're obligated to use the body of knowledge they have.

The great thing about living in New York is the constant change of things. It inspires me to keep moving, push forward, question ideas. I have a heavy travel schedule so being in a new environment always gives me another perspective to see things from.

Here you discover that so long as books are kept open, then minds can never be closed.

The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Be versed in ancient lore, and familiarize yourself with the modern; then may you become teachers.

Students may feel the criticism is harsh, but I think it's possible they haven't had criticism before. It's my job to point out when something is badly done, or when there's no point of view. To build a brand you have to have something about you. If not personality, then some thought process. I'm 40, and they're young, so they're meant to be informing me. They should be bringing me a book or something that I haven't seen, not like some obscure chant book by Dominican monks, but an image of the way they see the world.

I find that so many of my peers of my age don't listen to anything new. But I love the new. I love the energy of the new, the energy of the new act. The young are so important. The young give you the energy, and if you don't notice the young, and you don't give them credit and you don't listen to all sorts of music, then you're missing out on something.

You don't have to know much, just a little bit more than everybody else.