Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [241-260] of 362 Knowledge quotesKnowledge QuotesKnowledge Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody is looking.~ H. L. Mencken That erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all, it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else.~ H. L. Mencken The truth is that Christian theology, like every other theology, is not only opposed to the scientific spirit; it is also opposed to all other attempts at rational thinking. Not by accident does Genesis 3 make the father of knowledge a serpent -- slimy, sneaking and abominable. Since the earliest days the church as an organization has thrown itself violently against every effort to liberate the body and mind of man. It has been, at all times and everywhere, the habitual and incorrigible defender of bad governments, bad laws, bad social theories, bad institutions. It was, for centuries, an apologist for slavery, as it was the apologist for the divine right of kings.~ H. L. Mencken There is, in fact, no reason to believe that any given natural phenomenon, however marvelous it may seem today, will remain forever inexplicable. Soon or late the laws governing the production of life itself will be discovered in the laboratory, and man may set up business as a creator on his own account. The thing, indeed, is not only conceivable; it is even highly probable.~ H. L. Mencken To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.~ Olin Miller Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.~ Charles Mingus Rousseau had it backwards. We are NOT born free. We are born in the chains of the random and the reflexive, and are ignorant and unreasonable by simple nature. We must learn to be free, to organize the random and detect the reflexive, to acquire the knowledge of particulars and the powers of reason. The examined life is impossible if we cannot examine, order, classify, define, distinguish, always in minute particulars.~ Richard Mitchell The ink of a scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.~ Mohammed Let us by wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties.~ James Monroe Access to knowledge is the superb, the supreme act of truly great civilizations. Of all the institutions that purport to do this, free libraries stand virtually alone in accomplishing this.~ Toni Morrison We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason if we remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate and to defend causes which were, for the moment, unpopular.~ Edward R. Murrow I am entirely persuaded that the American public is more reasonable, restrained and mature than most of the broadcast industry's planners believe. Their fear of controversy is not warranted by the evidence.~ Edward R. Murrow The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience.~ National Education Association Resolution I can calculate the motions of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.~ Issac Newton The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power.~ Albert Jay Nock Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged.~ Northwest Ordinance, Article III, 1787 As long as men are free to ask what they must, free to say what they think, free to think what they will, freedom can never be lost and science can never regress.~ J. Robert Oppenheimer The danger to which the success of revolutions is most exposed, is that of attempting them before the principles on which they proceed, and the advantages to result from them, are sufficiently seen and understood.~ Thomas Paine Reason and Ignorance, the opposites of each other, influence the great bulk of mankind. If either of these can be rendered sufficiently extensive in a country, the machinery of Government goes easily on. Reason obeys itself; and Ignorance submits to whatever is dictated to it.~ Thomas Paine To know the world one must construct it.~ Cesare Pavese Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print