Education has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

To be able to read requires some technical skills like learning the letters and putting syllables together. It takes comparatively short time to handle. 

To find what is worth reading requires what people call wisdom. One needs to feel the style and to be guided by those who can distinguish good from bad, poor from excellent class. Coming in touch with such people a “student” gains this “acquired taste” from his peers, then he or she can construct their own world. We can learn a style from Ernest Hemingway and the depth of thought from Mikhail Dostoevskiy. 

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.

An expert is the one who has learned everything about the things he proclaims he is an expert in. It is impossible to know everything about everything so it is more practical to know everything about a particular field.

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.

The more a person knows about the world the more he understands the level of his or her ignorance. The same thing happened with Socrates when he was surprised to learn he was called the wisest person in Greece. He went to people who he considered wise too and talked with them. After speaking with them Socrates said, “I know that I know nothing but they don’t.” The difference was that he was aware of his ignorance but they were not. 

Education is an admirable thing but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

People often confuse education and information. Some people learn a lot of information and want to be considered educated people. 

Others understand education as a way of behavior which is based on information. In this case a person not only learns about things but knows how to apply everything he or she learns in their life. It takes more time and energy but it gives the right attitude … . It is called self-realization on the base of a particular field. In this conception a teacher shows the path himself and a student follows it.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your-confidence.

A well educated person has a “core” system of values that he or she has built up, while going through many theories and teachings. It is based on self-realization and it is difficult to destroy or shake. Losing a temper or confidence indicates that a person’s system of values is not really stable. He is too weak to be able to accept another’s opinions that contradicts his own opinions. This weakness creates anger and very often aggression. 

Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.

Very often people confuse education and information. A person who knows many things considers himself educated. 

There is another opinion that real education is a way of behavior that is based on the information one learned. This information is called knowledge, or in other words “realized information”, information that is put into practice.  Any information can be forgotten but the behavior patterns remain forever or at least for a very long time. There are people who lost their memory but their behavior was the same. Qualities like tolerance, forgiveness, humility etc. always remain with an educated person. 

The highest result of education is tolerance.

Following the thoughts above we can say that education is not the information one obtains at school or university but it is realized knowledge that transforms into practical skills that benefits learners. Among the acquired qualities tolerance is considered the most important one. If we dig deeper into this quality we will see that it comes not from restricting oneself from anger, hatred or violence but from understanding the world from a particular angle. This vision or paradigm gives a person harmony and what we call wisdom. 

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

One can easily contemplate a thought or an idea without being disturbed only if he or she has a strong system of values. This thought might contradict one’s own vision but it doesn’t bother him because he feels content with his life. Such a person feels that there is no need to prove something to someone. He sees an idea and enjoys the variety of thoughts that might exist.

Tell me and I will forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand.

It is said about different levels of comprehension of information that are based on different levels of sensory involvement. 

The first level is when a person just listens to information. Let’s call it the level of memory. 

The second level is when a person uses visual perception. There is a saying, “It is better to see something one time than to listen to it one hundred times”. 

The third and most powerful level of learning is engaging oneself in the activity that is based on the learned information. It gives the biggest realization of what have been learned. 

I never teach my pupils, I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Many people believe a true teacher doesn’t really teach a student. He gives him or her the tools, using which they can learn how to educate or themselves. If a person wants to learn for example a language, a teacher gives him books and explains to him some methods that will accelerate the process. It is called “providing the conditions”. A good teacher inspires students to learn. He loves learning things himself and lights this desire in others. 

I would rather entertain and hope that people learned something than educate people and hope they were entertained.

There is a conception that “learning can be fun”. A good teacher can entertain students and they will learn more than when they are taught by a teacher who just blandly teaches them a subject. Sometimes teaching can raise student resistance if it is done improperly. Entertainment that is done in a proper way can be very educational and enjoyable. Such way of teaching is not easy to perform but skilled teachers can explain even boring materials in a funny and easy way so that a student can understand everything and not to fall asleep. 

An education isn’t how much you have committed to memory or even how much you know. Its being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.

This quote is similar to “Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” When a person goes down the path of getting knowledge properly, he or she realizes how vast this knowledge is. This realization arises humbleness and understanding own position in this process. It doesn’t mean that a person says that he will stop learning because it is impossible to learn everything but rather he understands that there is nothing one can brag about since he knows a tiny part of what can be learned.