The True Aim of Education
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.
— Thomas H. Huxley
On Children and Obedience
There was a time when we expected nothing of our children but obedience, as opposed to the present, when we expect everything of them but obedience.
— Anatole Broyard
Who’s a Bore?
A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.
— Gian Vincenzo Gravina
On Computer Errors
“To err is human” but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
— Agatha Christie
On Limitless Stupidity
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the former.
— Albert Einstein
On the Pursuit of Happiness
Well-being and happiness never appeared to me as an absolute aim. I am even inclined to compare such moral aims to the ambitions of a pig.
— Albert Einstein
On Equality
It is not true that equality is a law of nature. Nature has no equality. Its sovereign law is subordination and dependence.
— Marquis de Varvenargues
On Equality
Equality…is the result of human organization. We are not born equal.
— Hannah Arendt