87 Learning Quotes For Inspiration

Learning is a journey that never truly ends. Whether you're in a classroom, at work, or simply navigating the everyday experiences of life, the quest for knowledge is constant and ever-evolving. To inspire and motivate you on this path, we've curated a collection of the top 87 learning quotes. These quotes, drawn from the wisdom of scholars, educators, and thought leaders throughout history, serve as powerful reminders of the value and joy of learning. Dive in and let these words fuel your passion for discovery and growth.

1. “You live and learn. At any rate, you live.” - Douglas Adams

2. “You don't read Gatsby, I said, to learn whether adultery is good or bad but to learn about how complicated issues such as adultery and fidelity and marriage are. A great novel heightens your senses and sensitivity to the complexities of life and of individuals, and prevents you from the self-righteousness that sees morality in fixed formulas about good and evil.” - Azar Nafisi

3. “Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.” - John Lubbock

4. “The world, even the smallest parts of it, is filled with things you don't know.” - Sherman Alexie

5. “Learning is finding out what you already know. Doing is demonstrating that you know it. Teaching is reminding others that they know just as well as you. You are all learners, doers, teachers.” - Richard Bach

6. “Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.” - Samuel Butler

7. “To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God's word, or the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.” - Francis Bacon

8. “Similarly with regard to truth, won't we say that a soul is maimed if it hates a voluntary falsehood, cannot endure to have one in itself, and is greatly angered when it exists in others, but is nonetheless content to accept an involuntary falsehood, isn't angry when it is caught being ignorant, and bears its lack of learning easily, wallowing in it like a pig?” - Plato

9. “I have no place in my life for someone who is sure he can do everything.” - Mercedes Lackey

10. “The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.” - Albert Einstein

11. “We need learn what we need to learn, know what we need to know, and do what we need to do.” - Thomas S. Monson

12. “Belief gets in the way of learning.” - Robert A. Heinlein

13. “Love, too, has to be learned.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

14. “I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.” - Lou Holtz

15. “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” - Albert Einstein

16. “Will robot teachers replace human teachers? No, but they can complement them. Moreover, the could be sufficient in situations where there is no alternative––to enable learning while traveling, or while in remote locations, or when one wishes to study a topic for which there is not easy access to teachers. Robot teachers will help make lifelong learning a practicality. They can make it possible to learn no matter where one is in the world, no matter the time of day. Learning should take place when it is needed, when the learner is interested, not according to some arbitrary, fixed schedule” - Donald A. Norman

17. “Though loyal and able and brave, Pea had never displayed the slightest ability to learn from his experience, though his experience was considerable. Time and again he would walk up on the wrong side of a horse that was known to kick, and then look surprised when he got kicked.” - Larry McMurtry

18. “Stress the right of the individual to select only what he desires to know, to use any knowledge as he wishes, that he himself owns what he has learned.” - L. Ron Hubbard

19. “[The public school system is] usually a twelve year sentence of mind control.Crushing creativity, smashing individualism, encouraging collectivism andcompromise, destroying the exercise of intellectual inquiry, twisting itinstead into meek subservience to authority.” - Walter Karp

20. “Training is a good dog, a constant companion and an utterly loyal and devoted friend, and everyone should have one. Education is a nagging counselor. And, I am convinced, everyone does have one. It happens, however, that some nagging counselors have grown strong by a certain kind of nourishment. Others are weak and puny, even infantile, having never been nourished at all.” - Richard Mitchell

21. “Bodily exercise, when compulsory, does no harm to the body; but knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.” - Plato

22. “The acquisition of knowledge is always of use to the intellect, because it may thus drive out useless things and retain the good. For nothing can be loved or hated unless it is first known.” - Leonardo da Vinci

23. “I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” - Winston S. Churchill

24. “Real learning comes about when the competitive spirit has ceased.” - J. Krishnamurti

25. “I had a professor one time... He said, 'Class, you will forget almost everything I will teach you in here, so please remember this: that God spoke to Balaam through his ass, and He has been speaking through asses ever since. So, if God should choose to speak through you, you need not think too highly of yourself. And, if on meeting someone, right away you recognize what they are, listen to them anyway'.” - Rich Mullins

26. “One thing I learned in here is the past is for learning. It's not for punishing others or yourself. It's not for dwelling on and getting angry about things you can't change. It's for learning how to do better in the rest of your life. And being grateful you get another chance to try and do better.” - Nicole Green

27. “Our lives are mere flashes of light in an infinitely empty universe. In 12 years of education the most important lesson I have learned is that what we see as “normal” living is truly a travesty of our potential. In a society so governed by superficiality, appearances, and petty economics, dreams are more real than anything anything in the “real world”. Refuse normalcy. Beauty is everywhere, love is endless, and joy bleeds from our everyday existence. Embrace it. I love all of you, all my friends, family, and community. I am ceaselessly grateful from the bottom of my heart for everyone. The only thing I can ask of you is to stay free of materialism. Remember that every day contains a universe of potential; exhaust it. Live and love so immensely that when death comes there is nothing left for him to take. Wealth is love, music, sports, learning, family and freedom. Above all, stay gold.” - Dominic Owen Mallary

28. “Learn the rules before you break them.” - Steven Taylor Goldsberry

29. “Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery - it's the sincerest form of learning.” - George Bernard Shaw

30. “You will not reap the fruit of individuality in your children if you clone their education.” - Marilyn Howshall

31. “The ultimate goal of the educational system is to shift to the individual the burden of pursing his own education. This will not be a widely shared pursuit until we get over our odd conviction that education is what goes on in school buildings and nowhere else.” - John W. Gardner

32. “The home is the first and most effective place to learn the lessons of life: truth, honor, virtue, self control, the value of education, honest work, and the purpose and privilege of life. Nothing can take the place of home in rearing and teaching children, and no worldly success can compensate for failure in the home.” - David O. McKay

33. “The conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.” - Roger Bacon

34. “You're going to meet many people with domineering personalities: the loud, the obnoxious, those that noisily stake their claims in your territory and everywhere else they set foot on. This is the blueprint of a predator. Predators prey on gentleness, peace, calmness, sweetness and any positivity that they sniff out as weakness. Anything that is happy and at peace they mistake for weakness. It's not your job to change these people, but it's your job to show them that your peace and gentleness do not equate to weakness. I have always appeared to be fragile and delicate but the thing is, I am not fragile and I am not delicate. I am very gentle but I can show you that the gentle also possess a poison. I compare myself to silk. People mistake silk to be weak but a silk handkerchief can protect the wearer from a gunshot. There are many people who will want to befriend you if you fit the description of what they think is weak; predators want to have friends that they can dominate over because that makes them feel strong and important. The truth is that predators have no strength and no courage. It is you who are strong, and it is you who has courage. I have lost many a friend over the fact that when they attempt to rip me, they can't. They accuse me of being deceiving; I am not deceiving, I am just made of silk. It is they who are stupid and wrongly take gentleness and fairness for weakness. There are many more predators in this world, so I want you to be made of silk. You are silk.” - C. JoyBell C.

35. “Growing up means learning what life is. When you're little, you have a set of ideals, standards, criteria, plans, outlooks, and you think that you have to sit around and wait for them to happen to you and then life will work. But life isn't like that, for anybody; you can't fall in love with a standard, you have to fall in love with a person. You can't live in a criteria, you have to live your life. You can't wait for your plans to materialize, because they may never materialize the way you think they will. You can't wait to watch your ideals and standards walk up to you, because you can't know what's yours until you have it. I always say, always take the first chance in case you never get a second one, but growing up takes that even one step further, growing up means that you have to hold on to what you have, when you have it, because what you have- that's yours- and all the ideals and criteria you have set in your head, those aren't yours, because those haven't happened to you.” - C. JoyBell C.

36. “The objective of learning is not necessarily to remember. It may even be salutary to forget. It is only when we forget the early pains and struggles of forming letters that we acquire the capacity for writing. The adult does not remember all the history s/he learned but s/he may hope to have acquired a standard of character and conduct, a sense of affairs and a feeling of change and development in culture. Naturally there is nothing against having a well-stocked mind provided it does not prevent the development of other capacities. But it is still more important to allow knowledge to sink into one in such a way that it becomes fruitful for life; this best done when we feel deeply all we learn. For the life of feeling is less conscious, more dream-like, than intellectual activity and leads to the subconscious life of will where the deep creative capacities of humanity have their being. It is from this sphere that knowledge can emerge again as something deeply significant for life. It is not what we remember exactly, but what we transform which is of real value to our lives. In this transformation the process of forgetting, of allowing subjects to sink into the unconscious before "re-membering" them is an important element.” - Henning Hansmann

37. “Time remorselessly rambles down the corridors and streets of our lives. but it is not until autumn that most of us become aware that our tickets are stamped with a terminal destination.” - Joe L. Wheeler

38. “Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it's dead. But we're allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And that's how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again.” - Madeleine L'Engle

39. “Divinity for the sake of the simple-minded is beautiful. Those theological assertions you write, say, or live by that you later feel foolish about, it means God still lives in you enough to tell you that they were indeed foolish. By mistakes you know you are alive.” - Criss Jami

40. “The essence of training is to allow error without consequence.” - Orson Scott Card

41. “The best education consists in immunizing people against systematic attempts at education.” - Paul Karl Feyerabend

42. “For a human being, nothing comes naturally,' said Grumman. 'We have to learn everything we do.” - Philip Pullman

43. “Humans are more dependent on learning for survival than other species,We have no instincts that automatically find us food and shelter !” - Bruce H. Lipton

44. “If he were a man of strong mind, it only gave him fits; but a person of mere average intellect it usually sent mad.” - Jerome K. Jerome

45. “Children learn to speak Male or Female the way they learn to speak English or French.” - Jeffrey Eugenides

46. “Those are fools however learnedWho have not learned to walk with the world.” - Tiruvalluvar

47. “The history of learning amounts to a history of specialization.” - Beryl Smalley

48. “Learn as if you were not reaching your goal and as though you were scared of missing it” - Confucius

49. “In God's economy, nothing is slag, nothing is wasted. Every relationship we build is a teacher, every experience we have is a coach. In every scar there is a lesson. In every memory there lives potential to make more.” - Toni Sorenson

50. “It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life.” - John Holt

51. “Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarce in that.” - Benjamin Franklin

52. “Let go of certainty. The opposite isn't uncertainty. It's openness, curiosity and a willingness to embrace paradox, rather than choose up sides. The ultimate challenge is to accept ourselves exactly as we are, but never stop trying to learn and grow.” - Tony Schwartz

53. “One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.” - Frank Herbert

54. “Will raised both eyebrows. 'Well, you learn a new thing everyday,' he said reflectively.'In your case, that's no exaggeration,' Halt said, completely straight-faced.” - John Flanagan

55. “I bargained with Life for a penny, and Life would pay no more, However I begged at eveningWhen I counted my scanty store;Life is a just employer. He gives you what you ask,But once you have set the wages,Why, you must bear the task.I worked for a menial's hire,Only to learn, dismayed,That any wage I had asked of Life,Life would have willingly paid” - Jessie B. Rittenhouse

56. “The problem in today’s economy is that people are typically starting a family at the very time they are also supposed to be doing their best work. They are trying to be productive at some of the most stressful times of their lives. What if companies took this unhappy collision of life events seriously? They could offer Gottman’s intervention as a benefit for every newly married, or newly pregnant, employee.” - John Medina

57. “One of the greatest journeys in life is overcoming insecurity and learning to truly not give a shit.” - J. A. Konrath

58. “Warren Buffett is one of the best learning machines on this earth. The turtles which outrun the hares are learning machines. If you stop learning in this world, the world rushes right by you.” - Lucas Remmerswaal

59. “The best way to learn is to do; the worst way to teach is to talk.” - Paul Halmos

60. “Everything I do is kind of a lesson, even if I am the only person who learns it.” - Taylor Mali

61. “I'm as proud of my inconsistencies as I am my consistencies.” - Myles Horton

62. “I should learn to run, to wrestle, to swim, to ride horses, to row, to drive a car, to fire a rifle. I should fill my soul with flesh. I should fill my flesh with soul. In fact, I should reconcile at last within me the two internal antagonists.” - Nikos Kazantzakis

63. “If what we learn is no more than what we expect to learn, then we have learned nothing at all.” - John H. Lienhard

64. “If we can keep ourselves from interfering with the natural laws of life, mistakes can be our child's finest teachers.” - Randy Alcorn

65. “She had told Kazan that she was bored with the roles she was playing because so many of them had been basically the same kind of empty-headed characterization. She wanted nothing ore than to challenge herself with more complex parts--and also wanted others to think of her as being more than a caricature....Anytime she had an opportunity to broaden her mind, she wanted to take advantage of it.” - J. Randy Taraborrelli

66. “I will learn by screwing up.” - Greg Bear

67. “So long as we learn it doesn’t matter who teaches us, does it?” - E.R. Braithwaite

68. “The social system is taking on a form in which finding out what you want to do is less and less of an option because your life is too structured, organised, controlled and disciplined.” - Noam Chomsky

69. “If there's nothing to learn because we know it all, what's the challenge? Why would the effort matter? What would be the point? - Odd Thomas” - Dean Koontz

70. “Knowing comes from learning, finding from seeking.” - Vaddey Ratner

71. “The most important attitude that can be formed is that of desire to go on learning.” - John Dewey

72. “Ich las damals unendlich viel und zwar gründlich. In wenigen Jahren schuf ich mir damit die Grundlagen eines Wissens, von denen ich auch heute noch zehre.” - Adolf Hitler

73. “Do not give hope where there is none.Do not turn away hope where there is seldom some.” - Rosen Topuzov

74. “Collaboration allows teachers to capture each other's fund of collective intelligence.” - Mike Schmoker

75. “A person who makes few mistakes makes little progress.” - Bryant McGill

76. “It's much easier on the emotions when one sees life as an experiment rather than a struggle for popularity.” - Criss Jami

77. “Conservatives cherished it for being small and inconvenient, and thus keeping out the "new people" whom New York was beginning to dread and yet be drawn to” - Edith Wharton

78. “I would go to parties and say I was an editor, and people, especially women – and that was important to me back then – would say, “Oh, really?” and raise their eyebrows and look at me a little more carefully. I remember the first party I went to after I became a teacher, someone asked me what I did for a living, and I said, “Well, I teach high school.” He looked over my shoulder, nodded his head, said, “I went to high school,” and walked away.Once I repeated this anecdote around a big table full of Mexican food in the garden at a place called La Choza in Chicago, and Becky Mueller, another teacher at the school, said that I was a “storyteller.” I liked that. I was looking for something to be other than “just” a teacher, and “storyteller” felt about right. I am a teacher and a storyteller in that order. I have made my living and my real contribution to my community as a teacher, and I have been very lucky to have found that calling, but all through the years I have entertained myself and occasionally other people by telling stories.” - Peter Ferry

79. “No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it.” - Murasaki Shikibu

80. “The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice.” - Brian Herbert

81. “If the path has been laid down, why the successive appearance of different teachers? Why would anyone reinvent the wheel, if everything were as cosy and sequential as primitive longing so easily convinces us?” - Idries Shah

82. “That's your opportunity--to approach your work in a way that generates unique learning and interactions that are worth sharing.” - Seth Godin

83. “Master those books you have. Read them thoroughly. Bathe in them until they saturate you. Read and reread them…digest them. Let them go into your very self. Peruse a good book several times and make notes and analyses of it. A student will find that his mental constitution is more affected by one book thoroughly mastered than by twenty books he has merely skimmed. Little learning and much pride comes from hasty reading. Some men are disabled from thinking by their putting meditation away for the sake of much reading. In reading let your motto be ‘much not many.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

84. “Mengajar adalah semacam pertunjukan yang harus menarik.” - Helvy Tiana Rosa

85. “I believe in always being open to learning more through exploration of everything available and following one's sense of curiosity, creativity, and playfulness.” - jay woodman

86. “Life moves forward, not backward, and it would be wise to listen to what change has to say.” - Bryant McGill

87. “When scientific conversations cease, then dogma rather than knowledge begins to rule the day.” - Jaak Panksepp