An education system cartoon, in what seems to be a Angelo Letizia (2014) article (Ѻ), visually conceptualizing of what Alan Watts famous referred to as the “here kitty kitty” mentality of the education-career process of the atypical coming into being realization.

See also: Hydraism

“You must acquire the best knowledge first, and without delay; it is the height of madness to learn what you will later have to unlearn.”

— Desiderius Erasmus (1497), “Letter to Christian Northoff” [5]

“It is of great advantage to the student of any subject to read the original memoirs on that subject, for science is always most completely assimilated when it is in the nascent state.”

— James Maxwell (1873), A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism (pg. xi)

“Erasmus advises students to read only the best books on the subjects with which they are occupied. He cautions them against loading their memories with the errors of inferior writers which they will afterwards have to throw off and forget.”

— James Froude (1894), Life and Letters of Erasmus [6]

“If one does not know what went on for the last three thousand years, he or she remains ignorant, merely surviving from day-to-day.”

— Johann Goethe (c.1820)

“Education is the progressive realization of our ignorance.”

— Will Durant (1965), variant of (Ѻ) above, per extension of Socratic paradox; seemingly misattributed to Einstein

A ranking of hardest degrees, in intellectual difficulty, on a scale of 1-100 (100=harder, 0=easier), of the 90 attained degrees (see: full list) for female graduating students of the University of Illinois, Chicago, for the graduating classes of 1969 and 1970 combined, according to the polled opinion of American college students (N=14). [2]

“If I am to describe what an event my first glance at Schopenhauer's writings was for me, I must dwell for a moment on an idea which used to come to me in my youth more pressingly, and more frequently, than perhaps any other. When in those days I roved as I pleased through wishes of all kinds, I always believed that sometime fate would take from me the terrible effort and duty of educating myself: I believed that, when the time came, I would discover a philosopher to educate me, a true philosopher whom one could follow without any misgiving because one would have more faith in him than one had in oneself ... Schopenhauer produced upon me, that magical outpouring of the inner strength of one natural creature on to another that follows the first and most fleeting encounter; and when I subsequently analyze that impression I discover it to be compounded of three elements, the elements of his honesty, his cheerfulness and his steadfastness. He is honest because he speaks and writes to himself and for himself, cheerful because he has conquered the hardest task by thinking, and steadfast because he has to be.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche (1876), “Schopenhauer as Educator”

“The object of education should be the teaching [of] how to react with vigor and economy. No doubt the world at large will always lag so far behind the active mind as to make a soft cushion of inertia to drop upon; but education should try to lessen the obstacles, diminish the friction, invigorate the energy, and should train minds to react, not at haphazard, but by choice, on the lines of force that attract their world.”

— Henry Adams (1907), The Education of Henry Adams [1]

“Nothing is to be gained by preaching this lesson as a form of energy. It would act as a dissipator of energy. Therefore I have taught it, or tried teaching it, only to the few men who could profit by it to economise their scholar’s energies,—to save them from wasting it on past processes. Economy is all I can see now, as true scientific object for education to pursue. Certain branches of education may soon be lopped off, to advantage.”

— Henry Adams (1910), “Letter to Barrett Wendell”, May 18

“Today's children are taught by our culture that we are a cosmic accident. Something slithered out of the primal slime and over billions of years evolved into a human being. We are cousins, ten times removed, to the ape at the zoo eating his own excrement.”

— Gary Bauer (1992/2013), Evangelical Christian centric politician; former domestic advisor to Ronald Reagan (Ѻ) (Ѻ) (Ѻ)

“To think that we just evolved from a bang, that we used to be monkeys, that seems unbelievable when you look at the complexity of the human body … If you tell children there is no purpose to their life—that they are just a chemical mutation—that doesn’t build self-esteem.”

— Nigel McQuoid (2001), Headmaster Emmanuel College

“Spend a few thoughts sometimes on the puzzling inquiries concerning vacuums and atoms, the doctrine of infinites, indivisibles, and incommensurables in geometry, wherein there appear some insolvable difficulties: do this on purpose to give you a more sensible impression of the poverty of your understanding and the imperfection of your knowledge. This will teach you what a vain thing it is to fancy that you know all things, and will instruct you to think modestly of your present attainments.”

— Isaac Watts (1727), The Improvement of the Mind (pg. 22); read by Michael Faraday at age 14 [8]

“By annihilating the desires, you annihilate the mind. Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.”

— Helvetius (1773), A Treatise on Man: His Intellectual Faculties and his Education (Ѻ)

“To be master of any branch of knowledge, you must master those which lie next to it; and thus, to know anything — you must know all.”

— Oliver Homes (1886), American jurist

“Never let school get in the way of your education.”

— Mark Twain (c.1890) (Ѻ)

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

— William Yeats (c.1905) (Ѻ)

“If I were in seventh grade now my mind would be rotting.”

— Balamurali Ambati (1990), age 12 statement; got MD at age 17