Natural abilities are like natural plants, that need pruning by study; and studies themselves do give forth directions too much at large, except they be bounded in by experience.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

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

The solution to adult problems tomorrow depends on large measure upon how our children grow up today.

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

Public education has not produced an educated public.

Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man’s training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly.

There is no education like adversity.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

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.

I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push and educational message.

Individuals are the sum of their unique experiences, challenges, and accomplishments. What matters is not the barriers they face, but how they choose to confront them. And their race is not to blame for everything—good or bad—that happens in their lives.

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.

Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionately to their occupancy of your thoughts.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake, it is necessary to stand out in the cold.

No one can draw more out of things, books included, than he already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given him no access.