“I believe in churches and schools; I hate wars, armies, soldiers, guns, and fireworks.”

Contrasts his support for social institutions with a strong aversion to violence. · Auto-Analysis

• Education
• Peace

“He has remained too long the passive recipient of other men's knowledge.”

Criticising a training that leaves students merely receptive · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Education
• Learning

“It is legal tender everywhere in Oxford, and like all paper currencies drives out better money.”

A wry image for how a mediocre standard crowds out a better one · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Education
• Value

“He has been taught results instead of methods; not how to find out, but what to remember.”

Criticising an education that prizes memorised facts over method · Inaugural lecture, A Plea for the Historical Teaching of History, 1904

• Education
• Learning

“Your path has been smoothed for just that end. When Mr. Rhodes was brooding over his scheme of the scholarships, he used to say the game is to get them to knock up against each other.”

Emphasising the importance of opportunity and contact between people. · Speech, Work in the Future, 1924

• Community
• Education
• Opportunity

“The game is to get them to knock up against each other qua students. After they’ve done that for three years at Oxford they’ll never forget it qua individuals.”

Kipling was quoting Rhodes on the lasting value of meeting people from different backgrounds. · Speech, Work in the Future, 1924, quoting Cecil Rhodes

• Community
• Education
• Friendship

“Men seldom do anything for the first time in their lives, except at school.”

Suggesting that childhood play rehearses many of the patterns of adult behaviour. · Speech, School Experiences, 1929

• Character
• Childhood
• Education

“The circumstances of my early training happened to throw me among disciplined men of action.”

Acknowledging the formative influence of his early environment. · Speech, The Spirit of the Navy, 1908

• Education
• Experience
• Influence

“You have done me the honour of asking me to read a paper to your society this evening.”

A modest opening to his discussion of reading and literary education. · Speech, The Uses of Reading, 1912

• Education
• Humility
• Reading

“Give me the first six years of a child's life and you can have the rest.”

Reflecting on the lasting influence of early childhood experience. · Something of Myself, chapter 1

• Childhood
• Education
• Experience

“Master Willie, your grandson, shows a poetical nature, and only wants training to do justice to it.”

Balancing encouragement with the need for disciplined development · Letter to Mrs E. S. Sinclair, September 16, 1882

• Education
• Poetry
• Talent

“I have been living in a French family, and this has had an admirable effect upon my proficiency in the language.”

An early endorsement of immersion as a way of learning language · Letter from Europe

• Education
• Language
• Learning

“The Frenchmen have half a century in advance.”

His lively early assessment of the superiority he perceived in French medical science and education · Letter from Europe, 1835

• Discovery
• Education
• Science

“The world demands a general education from us now; we therefore need not concern ourselves further with that. We must make the particular our own.”

Original: Eine allgemeine Ausbildung dringt uns jetzt die Welt ohnehin auf; wir brauchen uns deshalb darum nicht weiter zu bemühen, das Besondere müssen wir uns zueignen. — Goethe distinguishes broad education from the deeper task of developing individual knowledge and expertise. · Wilhelm Meister’s Journeyman Years (German)

• Education
• Individuality
• Learning

“Whoever wants to make something great must have developed his education to such a degree that he can raise lesser reality to the height of his spirit.”

Original: Wer aber etwas Großes machen will, muß seine Bildung so gesteigert haben, daß er gleich den Griechen imstande sei, die geringere reale Natur zu der Höhe seines Geistes heranzuheben. — Goethe sees artistic greatness as the transformation of observed reality through cultivated intelligence. · Conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, 20 October 1828 (German)

• Art
• Creation
• Education

“Teaching accomplishes much, but encouragement accomplishes everything.”

Original: Lehre tut viel, aber Aufmunterung tut alles. — Goethe emphasises the motivating power of encouragement over instruction alone. · Conversation with Johann Peter Eckermann, 14 March 1830 (German)

• Education
• Encouragement
• Teaching

“The best education is found by an intelligent person through travel.”

Original: Die beste Bildung findet ein gescheiter Mensch auf Reisen. — Travel becomes a form of education through direct experience of places, people and unfamiliar ways of life. · Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, Book V, Chapter 2 (German)

• Education
• Learning
• Travel

“The more eminent the professor of English, the less apt he is to be able to write decent criticism.”

A deliberately provocative challenge to the assumption that scholarly eminence automatically produces good literary criticism. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Education
• Judgement

“The department of English is charged with the understanding and the communication of literature, an art, yet it has usually forgotten to inquire into the peculiar constitution and structure of its product.”

A pointed complaint that literary departments can neglect the artistic nature of the works they study. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Education
• Literature

“The studies which I have mentioned have immeasurably improved in understanding since they were taken over by the universities.”

He uses the development of other academic disciplines to argue for a more rigorous literary criticism. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Education
• Knowledge

“The professional morale of the professors is very high, but their critical morale is very low.”

His distinction between professional standing and the intellectual standards he expected from literary critics. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Education
• Standards

“Professors of literature are learned but not critical men.”

A sharp criticism of literary scholarship that accumulates knowledge without necessarily developing critical judgement. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Criticism
• Education
• Knowledge

“The students of the future must be permitted to study literature, and not merely about literature.”

A forceful argument for direct engagement with literature rather than allowing literary study to become detached from the works themselves. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Education
• Literature
• Reading

“Students should study literature, and not merely about literature.”

A concise statement of his belief that literature itself should remain at the centre of literary education. · Essay, Criticism, Inc.

• Education
• Literature
• Reading