Unproductive Learning Quotes

Erudition can produce foliage without bearing fruit.

Education with inert ideas is not only useless; it is above all things harmful.

Much reading is an oppression of the mind, and extinguishes the natural candle, which is the reason of so many senseless scholars in the world.

Arbitrary benchmarks cheat kids out of a fulfilling education.

I regrettably wasted time at university by being overwhelmed and intimidated by the talent of other composers. I felt stuck and didn't know what I was doing there. I enjoyed my experience, but I didn't grab it in the way I would now.

If you spend all your time reading books that you only pretend to understand, year after year, there isn't much room for anything else.

The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.

I do not know whether the books are religious or not; but I know that they are tiresome, and teach me nothing…We have already gone through five volumes of it, your majesty, and I am tired to death of it. Moreover, I don't believe half that I read in his [Father Francis—his religious tutor] stupid books.

There is such a thing as too much education for working people .... I have seen cases where young people were spoiled for labor by being educated to a little too much refinement.

Knowledge acquired too rapidly and without being personally supplemented is never very productive.