Several weeks ago, I read an inspirational quote from Mahatma Ghandi which set me thinking about how we can be inspired to improve ourselves by learning from each other’s words.

While I have taken care to verify these quotes, it is possible that some have been wrongly attributed. For example, I found one quote attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” Another source claims that he was not the originator of the quote and it is actually an ancient Chinese proverb.

Regardless of the sources, I hope you find these words about learning inspiring.

1. Confucius (Chinese teacher and philosopher 551-479BCE): A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life.
2. Alexander Pope (English author and poet 1688-1744): A little learning is a dangerous thing.
3. Benjamin Franklin (American statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor and diplomat 1706-1790): Well done is better than well said.
4. Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens, American author 1835-1910): Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.
5. Thomas Edison (American inventor 1847-1931): What is a college? An institute of learning. What is a business? An institute of learning. Life, itself, is an institute of learning.
6. Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Spanish neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner, 1852-1934. He did not consider himself a genius): The mediocre can be educated; geniuses educate themselves.
7. L. Frank Baum (American author 1856-1919): No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.
8. Mahatma Ghandi (Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Indian activist who inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world 1869-1948): Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
9. Albert Einstein (German, later American Mathematician and physicist 1879-1955): Education is what remains after one has forgotton what one has learned in school.
10. Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel, American author 1904-1991): The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.
11. Jiddu Krishnamurti (Indian philosopher, speaker and writer 1895-1986): There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.
12. Pele (Edson Arantes do Nascimento, Brazilian football/soccer player 1940-): Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.

A Final Thought

What did you learn today?

By Pat Bowden, published February 26, 2019.