Bertrand Russell Quotes

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

The paradox of education is precisely this - that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.

Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom.

Education means to bring out wisdom. Indoctrination means to push in knowledge.

The essence of Vanderbilt is still learning, the essence of its outlook is still liberty, and liberty and learning will be and must be the touchstones of Vanderbilt University and of any free university in this country or the world. I say two touchstones, yet they are almost inseparable, inseparable if not indistinguishable, for liberty without learning is always in peril, and learning without liberty is always in vain.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education.

Learning, n. The kind of ignorance distinguishing the studious.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

It is very nearly impossible... to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.

We cannot create observers by saying 'observe', but by giving them the power and the means for this observation and these means are procured through education of the senses.

In formal logic, a contradiction is the signal of defeat, but in the evolution of real knowledge it marks the first step in progress toward a victory.

Reading makes you smarter. It really does.

Universities are the temple through which alone lies the road to that of Liberty.

The basis of anything is education, so that people not only become qualified, but essentially become able to create new knowledge

If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to be hoped from it .... For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?

We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like “critical thinking,” “diversity,” “ways of knowing,” “social justice,” and “cultural competence.”

You don't get smarter by not learning stuff.

If one learns from others, but does not think, one will be bewildered. If, on the other hand, one thinks but does not learn from others, one will be in peril.

What transforms this world is - knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.

Children enter school as question marks and leave as periods.

As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.

To learn without thinking is labour in vain, to think without learning is desolation.