“Unless the schools provide our children with a vision of human possibility that enlightens and empowers them with knowledge and taste, they will simply play their role in someone else's marketing schemes. Unless they understand deeply the sources of our democracy, they will take it for granted and fail to exercise their rights and responsibilities.”

“Our schools are no closer in connecting the education of children to their development as human beings: each child as an individual with a unique contribution to make to the world. Until this is done, our schools will fail to help children become active learners, connected to their society, and empowered to accomplish things within it.”

“Unless we press the limits, unless we stretch and expand them, unless we can accept at least the possibility that we may be wrong, or blinkered, or wrapped in our own habitual and familiar vision, we will never even see the prison bars we have constructed, let alone be able to break free of them.”

“Our triumphs seem hollow unless we have friends to share them, and our failures are made bearable by their understanding.”

“We can only fix our own lives. We cannot play the role of gods in someone else's.”

“What do I miss, as a human being, if I have never heard of the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The answer is: Nothing. And what do I miss by not knowing Shakespeare? Unless I get my understanding from another source, I simply miss my life. Shall we tell our children that one thing is as good as another-- here a bit of knowledge of physics, and there a bit of knowledge of literature? If we do so, the sins of the fathers will be visited upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, because that normally is the time it takes from the birth of an idea to its full maturity when it fills the minds of a new generation and makes them think by it.Science cannot produce ideas by which we could live.”