H. L. Mencken Quotes

Doctrina sed vim promovet insitam. Instruction enlarges the natural powers of the mind.

Teaching is a function, not a profession. Anything with something to offer can teach.

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.

Like most teachers, I'm just another sower of seeds.

To discover and to teach are distinct functions; they are also distinct gifts, and are not commonly found united in the same person.

If you make one gift this year, make it the gift of knowledge.

I look forward to teaching the occasional class, 'cause I was a professor. And I had fun doing it.

When you learn, teach, when you get, give.

If you would thoroughly know anything, teach it to others.

What I've learned over the last 6 or 7 years, I would love to teach people. I still have a lot to share with people and especially within the US.

The idea that teaching is somehow the delivery of the goods is such a misunderstanding of what actually goes on.

The schoolmaster is termed, classically, Ludi Magister, because he deprives boys of their play.

One of the main truths of all education is that if the young are not always right, the old are always wrong.

To teach is part of the very fabric of learning.

You teach best that which you need most to learn.

The schoolmaster is abroad, and I trust to him, armed with his primer, against the soldier in full military array...

... 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.

Education, education, education

You can only learn when you teach.

It is noble to teach oneself; it is still nobler to teach others.

Teaching is the highest art; before the doctor, there was a teacher.

Schools teach ignorance.

You know what Oscar Wilde said, ma'am? He said, "nothing that is worth knowing can be taught". Nothing personal, ma'am... Carry on.

Etymologically, the word education means just a process of leading or bringing up.

A parent or a teacher has only his lifetime; a good book can teach forever.