“The object of education is to fit the child for the life of the man.”

Defining education as preparation for the responsibilities of adult life · Essay, Wings and the Child, Chapter IX: Praise and Punishment

• Childhood
• Education
• Growth

“Many a clever boy is flogged into a dunce, and many an original composition corrected into mediocrity.”

Criticising education and editing that suppress natural ability · Journal, 29 June 1826

• Criticism
• Education
• Originality

“Above all, you go to a great school for self-knowledge.”

Making self-understanding the highest purpose of education · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

• Education
• Knowledge
• Mind

“For taste, for discrimination, for mental courage, and for mental soberness.”

Summing up the qualities of mature and disciplined judgement · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

• Courage
• Education
• Wisdom

“But you go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits.”

Presenting education as the formation of intellectual habits rather than simple fact-gathering · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

• Education
• Learning
• Skill

“At school you are engaged not so much in acquiring knowledge as in making mental efforts under criticism.”

Distinguishing education from the mere accumulation of information · Essay, Eton Reform II, 1861

• Criticism
• Education
• Learning

“What blockheads are those wise persons, who think it necessary that a child should comprehend everything it reads.”

Defending a child’s freedom to encounter books before fully understanding them · Prose, The Doctor

• Childhood
• Education
• Reading

“Anything would be better than the soul-killing routine of a Professor's life.”

A memorable expression of the strain he felt between institutional work and the life of the imagination · Letter to Rabindranath Tagore, 17 October 1898

• Education
• Freedom
• Work

“If you had lived upon scant means, compelled to support yourself, often being physically hungry in an endeavor to satisfy your mental hunger for knowledge”

Contrasting physical deprivation with an intense hunger for learning · Foreword to Plea of the Negro Soldier and a Hundred Other Poems, 1908

• Education
• Knowledge
• Perseverance

“If you had been deprived of an education in your early youth; if then you had run away from home to obtain that education”

Recalling his determined pursuit of education despite poverty and disadvantage · Foreword to Plea of the Negro Soldier and a Hundred Other Poems, 1908

• Education
• Perseverance
• Struggle

“God disciplines the individual for the sake of society. God teaches the teacher for the sake of the class.”

Original: Mae Duw yn disgyblu'r unigol er mwyn y cymdeithasol. Mae Duw'n dysgu'r athro er mwyn y class. — Presenting individual development as preparation for service to others · Sermon, Cyfamod Duw a Dyn (Welsh)

• Community
• Education
• Faith

“They are not merely the words of Catwg the Wise, but a summary of the pupils' best sayings; and the pupils often outdo the teacher.”

Original: Nid geiriau Catwg Ddoeth yn unig ydynt, ond crynhodeb o ddywediadau goreu'r disgyblion; ac mae'r disgyblion yn fynych yn curo'r athro. — Recognising that pupils can sometimes surpass their teachers · Address, Gorsedd, National Eisteddfod Cardiff, 1899 (Welsh)

• Education
• Learning
• Wisdom

“Let something be read that will open the class's mind rather than crack its head.”

Original: Darllener rhywbeth wna i'r dosbarth agor ei feddwl, ac nid agor y crib. — A humorous plea for education that opens the mind rather than overwhelming the learner · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Education
• Humour
• Learning

“To meet the coming future, there should be two examinations: one for the schoolboy and one for the thoughtful man, with a class and work for each.”

Original: I gwrdd â'r dyfodol agos, dylai fod yna ddau arholiad, arholiad i'r bachgen ysgol, ac arholiad i'r dyn meddylgar; a dylai fod dosbarth a gwaith ar gyfer pob un ohonynt. — Advocating education that recognises different kinds of ability and experience · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Education
• Hope

“This is valuable knowledge for a young man setting out to live by the principle of truth; it is knowledge that cannot be found in a book.”

Original: Dyma wybodaeth werthfawr i fachgen ifanc yn myned i fyw ar yr egwyddor wiroddol; dyma wybodaeth nad yw i'w chael mewn llyfr. — Distinguishing lived understanding from knowledge acquired through books · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Education
• Truth

“The real young men are those who have worked and sweated, and who know the people, their spirit, their ways and their needs.”

Original: Bechgyn iawn yw'r bechgyn yma sydd wedi bod yn gweithio, ac wedi bod yn chwysu, ac yn gwybod am y bobl, ac ysbryd y bobl, am ffyrdd y bobl, ac angen y bobl. — Valuing practical experience and close knowledge of ordinary people · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Community
• Education

“The best preparation is preparation before birth. The preacher and minister, like the poet, should be born for the work.”

Original: Y paratoad goreu yw paratoad cyn geni. Dylai y pregethwr a'r gweinidog, fel y bardd, gael ei eni i'r gwaith. — Arguing that vocation begins with natural aptitude as well as training · Address, Y Paratoad Goreu ar Gyfer y Weinidogaeth, 1895 (Welsh)

• Art
• Education
• Poetry

“Let no one despise the benefits which thus open the young and tender heart. They are the gates of knowledge.”

Linking emotional awakening with genuine understanding · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Childhood
• Education
• Love

“When we encounter a new idea it surprises us, and we begin to doubt and examine it—and this is thought.”

Defining thought as active examination rather than passive acceptance · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Education
• Truth

“What teacher has ever endeavored to instil into his pupils the value of weeds or grasses, of animal or vegetable nature... the wonders of space, or of the seasons; of night, of silence?”

Calling for education to include wonder, observation and silence · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Education
• Nature

“Let no one despise any means by which the intellect of a boy may be widened or strengthened.”

Advocating a broad and humane education · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter III (published posthumously, 1877)

• Childhood
• Education

“The schoolmaster is generally a compound of the martyr and the tyrant.”

Capturing the contradictory pressures of teaching · Autobiographical fragment, Chapter I (published posthumously, 1877)

• Education
• Truth

“It is a great mistake to suppose that education is to supply the place of natural gifts, or that natural gifts could dispense with education.”

Presenting education and natural ability as necessary complements · Letter to Mrs Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 15 May 1843

• Childhood
• Education
• Truth

“Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education.”

An observation on education as a means of overcoming prejudice · Prose novel, Jane Eyre

• Education
• Truth