—The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Act II, Scene ii, 285-300)

Every student can learn, just not on the same day, or the same way.
– George Evans

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.
– Doris Lessing

What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.
– Martina Horner

Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each.
– Plato

As a teacher I feel I have a moral obligation to help the children in my classroom grow toward becoming full human beings and to feel successful. Teaching cognitive skills is not enough…
– Jean Medick

Learning to teach is a bigger job than universities, schools, experience, or personal disposition alone can accomplish.
– Sharon Feiman-Nemser

In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.
– Lee Iacocca

Don’t set your wit against a child.
– Jonathan Swift

It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts… it is to teach them to think, if that is possible, and always to think for themselves.
– Robert Hutchins

The secret of teaching is to appear to have known all your life what you learned this afternoon.
– Anonymous

They may forget what you said but they will never forget how you made them feel.
– Anonymous

The job of an educator is to teach students to see vitality in themselves.
– Joseph Campbell

I hear, and I forget. I see, and I remember. I do, and I understand.
– Chinese Proverb

In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made School Boards.
– Mark Twain

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire.
– W. B. Yeats

The objective of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.
– Robert Maynard Hutchins

There is a brilliant child locked inside every student.
– Marva Collins

A teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
– Henry B. Adams

Information cannot replace education.
– Earl Kiole

We all need someone who inspires us to do better than we know how.
– Anonymous

When will the public cease to insult the teacher’s calling with empty flattery? When will men who would never for a moment encourage their own sons to enter the work of the public schools cease to tell us that education is the greatest and noblest of all human callings?
– William C. Bagley

The kids in our classroom are infinitely more significant than the subject matter we teach.
– Meladee McCarty

Teaching is not a profession; it’s a passion.
– Unknown

Your heart is slightly bigger than the average human heart, but that’s because you’re a teacher.
– Aaron Bacall

Aim for success, not perfection. Never give up your right to be wrong, because then you will lose the ability to learn new things and move forward with your life. Remember that fear always lurks behind perfectionism.
– David M. Burns

A professor can never better distinguish himself in his work than by encouraging a clever pupil, for the true discoverers are among them, as comets amongst the stars.
– Linnaeus

A teacher effects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops.
– Henry Adams

Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
– Mark Twain

It is books that are the key to the wide world; if you can’t do anything else, read all that you can.
– Jane Hamilton

An idea can turn to dust or magic, depending on the talent that rubs against it.
– Bill Bernbach

Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work.
– Aristotle

It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
– Alec Bourne

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

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten
– B. F. Skinner

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
– Gail Godwin

Education is the best provision for old age.
– Aristotle

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
– Confucius

The mark of a true MBA is that he is often wrong but seldom in doubt.
– Robert Buzzell

If I were asked … to what the singular prosperity and growing strength of Americans ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply: To the superiority of their women.
– Alexis de Tocqueville

Children need models rather than critics.
– Joseph Joubert

The true teacher defends his pupils against his own personal influence. He inspires self-trust. He guides their eyes from himself to the spirit that quickens him. He will have no disciple.
–Amos Bronson Alcott

It is the responsibility of every adult… to make sure that children hear what we have learned from the lessons of life and to hear over and over that we love them and that they are not alone
– Marian Wright Edelman

Education is more than filling a child with facts. It starts with posing questions.
– D.T. Max

If people did not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein

Upon the subject of education, not presuming to dictate any plan or system respecting it, I can only say that I view it as the most important subject which we as a people may be engaged in.
– Abraham Lincoln

It’s okay to make mistakes. Mistakes are our teachers — they help us to learn.
– John Bradshaw

It’s not what is poured into a student, but what is planted.
–Linda Conway

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
– Albert Einstein

Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand… what he learns and the way he understands it.
– Soren Kierkegaard

If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.
– Thumper’s father (Bambi 1942)

A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him.
– James Baldwin

We’re going to have the best-educated American people in the world.
– Dan Quayle.

That is the difference between good teachers and great teachers: good teachers make the best of a pupil’s means; great teachers foresee a pupil’s ends.
– Maria Callas

A word as to the education of the heart. We don’t believe that this can be imparted through books; it can only be imparted through the loving touch of the teacher.
– Cesar Chavez

The highest result of education is tolerance.
– Helen Keller

My heart is singing for joy this morning. A miracle has happened! The light of understanding has shone upon my little pupil’s mild, and behold, all things are changed.
– Anne Sullivan

Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with excellence.
– Unknown

You can teach a student a lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives.
– Clay P. Bedford

Take a deep breath, count to ten, and tackle each task one step at a time.
– Linda Shalaway

Nothing is ever achieved without enthusiasm.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

Learning is not a spectator sport.
– Anonymous

In an effective classroom students should not only know what they are doing, they should also know why and how.
– Harry Wong

The important thing is not to stop questioning.
–Albert Einstein

The whole world opened to me when I learned to read.
– Mary McLeod Bethune

A gifted teacher is as rare as a gifted doctor, and makes far less money.
– Unknown

A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.
– Thomas Carruthers

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.
– William Arthur Ward

All of us do not have equal talent, but all of us should have an equal opportunity to develop our talent.
– John F. Kennedy

The man who can make hard things easy is the educator.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson

What I hear, I forget. What I see, I remember. What I do, I understand.
– Confucius

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
– Gandhi

I am learning all the time. The tombstone will be my diploma.
– Eartha Kitt

You learn something every day if you pay attention.
– Ray LeBlond

Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.
– Chinese Proverb

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me.
– Dudley Field Malone

You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way.
– Marvin Minsky

The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.
– John Lubbock

People learn something every day, and a lot of times it’s that what they learned the day before was wrong.
– Bill Vaughan

Nothing is more powerful and liberating than knowledge.
– William H. Gray III

Education cost money, but then so does ignorance.
– Claus Moser

The liberally educated person is one who is able to resist the easy and preferred answers not because he is obstinate but because he knows others worthy of consideration.
– Allan Bloom

Most teachers waste their time by asking questions which are intended to discover what a pupil does not know whereas the true art of questioning has for its purpose to discover what the pupil knows or is capable of knowing.
– Albert Einstein

Freedom of teaching and of opinion in book or press is the foundation for the sound and natural development of any people.
– Albert Einstein

How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book! The book exists for us, perchance, that will explain our miracles and reveal new ones.
– Henry David Thoreau

Grade school is the snooze button on the clock radio of life.
– John Rogers

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.
– B.B. King

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.
– Benjamin Franklin

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
– George Bernard Shaw

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.
– B.F. Skinner

The larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.
– Ralph M. Sockman

Do not worry about your difficulties in mathematics. I can assure you that mine are still greater.
– Albert Einstein

How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.
– Alexander Dumas

I think the world is run by C students.
– Al McGuire

If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.
– Abraham Maslow

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
– Aristotle

Higher education must lead the march back to the fundamentals of human relationships, to the old discovery that is ever new, that man does not live by bread alone.
– John A. Hannah

I teach therefore I am.
– Anonymous

Effective teachers seek feedback and consensus on their decisions and make sure that students understand.
– Linda Shalaway

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.
– Margaret Mead

There is nothing more unequal than the equal treatment of unequal people.
– Thomas Jefferson

The role of parents in the education of their children cannot be overestimated.
– Mexican American Legal Defense Fun

I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think – Socrates

Personally, I am always ready to learn, although I do not always like being taught. – Winston Churchill

Knowing is not enough; we must apply.
Willing is not enough we must do. – Goethe

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” – John Powell

You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself. – Galileo Galilei

Learning is not a spectator sport. – D. Blocher

For learning to take place with any kind of efficiency students must be motivated. To be motivated, they must become interested. And they become interested when they are actively working on projects which they can relate to their values and goals in life. – Gus Tuberville, President, William Penn College

The only kind of learning which significantly influences behavior is self-discovered or self-appropriated learning – truth that has been assimilated in experience. – Carl Rogers

It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained. – Elizabeth II, Queen of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (b. 1926). Television documentary, BBC1, 6 Feb. 1992.

I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. – Henry David Thoreau

I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. – Albert Einstein

The teacher if he is indeed wise does not teach bid you to enter the house of wisdom but leads you to the threshold of your own mind. – Kahlil Gilbran, Lebanese symbolist poet and painter

The author himself is the best judge of his own performance; none has so deeply meditated on the subject; none is so sincerely interested in the event. – Edward Gibbon ìMemoirs of my Lifeì (1796)

Retention is best when the learner is involved. – Edward Scannell, director, University Conference Bureau, Arizona

Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him. – Oscar Wilde, ìLord Fermor, in The Picture of Dorian Grayî (1891)

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. – Mark Twain ìPudd’nhead Wilsonî

It takes two to speak the truth,–one to speak, and another to hear. – Henry David Thoreau

Common-sense is part of the home-made ideology of those who have been deprived of fundamental learning, of those who have been kept ignorant. This ideology is compounded from different sources: items that have survived from religion, items of empirical knowledge, items of protective skepticism, items culled for comfort from the superficial learning that is supplied. But the point is that common-sense can never teach itself, can never advance beyond its own limits, for as soon as the lack of fundamental learning has been made good, all items become questionable and the whole function of common-sense is destroyed. Common-sense can only exist as a category insofar as it can be distinguished from the spirit of enquiry, from philosophy. – John Berger, British author, critic.

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new lands, but in seeing with new eyes. – Marcel Proust, French novelist

The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires – William Arthur Ward

The biggest enemy to learning is the talking teacher. – John Holt

Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten. – B. F. Skinner

Everybody who is incapable of learning has taken to teaching. – Oscar Wilde “The Decay of Lying”

Some, for renown, on scraps of learning dote,
And think they grow immortal as they quote.
- Edward Young

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. – Octavio Paz

The road to wisdom?-Well, it’s plain
and simple to express:
Err
and err
and err again
but less
and less
and less.
- Piet Hein, Danish inventor and poet.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.
- Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.), Legendary Chinese philosopher.

Some are born with knowledge, some derive it from study, and some acquire it only after a painful realization of their ignorance. But the knowledge being possessed, it comes to the same thing. Some study with a natural ease, some from a desire for advantages, and some by strenuous effort. But the achievement being made, it comes to the same thing. – Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius)

When you know something, say what you know. When you don’t know something, say that you don’t know. That is knowledge.” – Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius)

What I hear, I forget.
What I see, I remember.
What I do, I understand.
- Kung Fu Tzu (Confucius)

There can be no knowledge without emotion. We may be aware of a truth, yet until we have felt its force, it is not ours. To the cognition of the brain must be added the experience of the soul. – Arnold Bennett (1867-1931), British novelist. The Journals of Arnold Bennett (1932), entry for 18 March 1897.

If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. . . . If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. – Mao Zedong (1893-1976), founder of the People’s Republic of China. Speech, July 1937, Yenan, China.

Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it is and will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in both cases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it loses its use-value. – Jean FranÁois Lyotard (b. 1924), French philosopher. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Introduction (1979).

Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indispensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major-perhaps the major-stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor. – Jean FranÁois Lyotard (b. 1924), French philosopher. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Introduction (1979).

The things we know best are the things we haven’t been taught. – Luc Vauvenargues, Marquis de (1715-47), French moralist. ReflÈxions et Maximes, no. 479 (1746).

Learning without thought is labor lost. Thought without learning is intellectual death. – Confucius (551-479 B.C.)

To know yet to think that one does not know is best;
Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty. – Lao-Tzu (6th century B.C.), Legendary Chinese philosopher. Tao-te-ching, bk. 2, ch. 71 (tr. by T. C. Lau, 1963).

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. – Mark Van Doren, poet

The most important part of teaching = to teach what it is to know. – Simone Weil (1909-43), French philosopher, mystic. London Notebook (written 1943, published 1950; repr. in First and Last Notebooks, pt. 4, ed. by Richard Rees, 1970).

It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well. – Henri-FrÈdÈric Amiel (1821-81), Swiss philosopher, poet. Journal Intime (1882; tr. by Mrs. Humphry Ward, 1892), entry for 27 Oct. 1853.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education – Mark Twain

If the past cannot teach the present and the father cannot teach the son, then history need not have bothered to go on, and the world has wasted a great deal of time. Russell Hoban (b. 1925), U.S. author. – Jachin-Boaz, in The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, ch. 1 (1973).

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight. – Thomas Calyle, Scottish essayist and historian

Before you become too entranced with gorgeous gadgets and mesmerizing video displays, let me remind you that information is not knowledge, knowledge is not wisdom, and wisdom is not foresight. Each grows out of the other, and we need them all. – Arthur C. Clarke

Creative thinking may mean simply the realization that there’s no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done. – Rudolph Flesch

In the outskirts of Dubuque, on the farm, when I was growing up – back there, back then – I learned, with all the pigs and chickens and the endless sameness everywhere you looked, or thought, back there I learned – though I doubt I knew I was learning it – that all the values were relative save one…”Who am I?” All the rest is semantics – liberty, dignity, possession. There’s only one that matters: “Who am I?” – Elizabeth, in The Lady from Dubuque, a play by Edward Albee

I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me. – Dudley Field Malone

I think, therefore I am (Cogito, ergo sum.) – Descartes

* I copied these quotations from http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/learnqt.html

Moral principles that exalt themselves by degrading human nature are in effect committing suicide. 79
What is sometimes called a benevolent interest in others may be but an unwitting mask for an attempt to dictate to them what their good shall be, instead of an endeavor to free them so that they may seek and find the good of their own choice. 82
Toleration is thus not just an attitude of good-humored indifference. It is positive willingness to permit reflection and inquiry to go on in the faith that the truly right will be rendered more secure though questioning and discussion, while things which have endured merely from custom will be amended or done away with. 83
Art … is more than a stir of energy in the doldrums of the dispirited, or a calm nthe storms of the troubled. Through art, meanings of objects that are otherwise dumb, inchoate, restricted, and resisted are clarified and concentrated, and not by thought working laboriously upon them, nor by escape into a world of mere sense, but by creation of a new experience. 84
Philosophy is said to begin in wonder and end in understanding. Art departs from what has been understood and ends in wonder. IN this end, the human contribution in art is also the quickened work of nature in man.  84
Any activity pursued in behalf of an ideal end against obstacles and n spite of threats of personal loss because of conviction of its general and enduring value is religious in quality. 87
Faith in the continued disclosing of truth through directed co-operative human endeavor is more religious n quality than is any faith n a completed revelation.  87
Within the flickering inconsequential acts of separate selves dwells a sense of the whole which claims and dignifies them. IN its presence we put off morality and live in the universal. The life of the community in which we live and have our being is the fit symbol of this relationship. The acts in which we express our perception of the ties which bind us to others are its only rites and ceremonies. 87
The measure of civilization is the degree in which the method of co-operative intelligence replaces the method of brute conflict. 89
The foundation of democracy is faith n the capacities of human nature; faith in human intelligence and in the power of pooled and co-operative experience. It is not b3elief that these things are completed but that, if given a show, they will grow and be able to generate progressively the knowledge and seldom needed to guide collective action. 89
The profit of education is the ability it gives to discriminate, to make distinctions that penetrate below the surface.  104
Knowledge is humanistic in quality not because it is about human products in the past, but because of what it does in liberating human intelligence and human sympathy. 105

Demian 

Hermann Hesse

“ = James quotations

“There is one thing which it [consciousness] does… always to choose out of the manifold of experiences present to it at any given time some one for particular accentuation and to ignore the rest. 41

He argues that consciousness’ dealing with objects independent of itself is not a passive revelation of the world; rather, consciousness actively selects for presentation certain aspects of the world because consciousness is personal, i.e., responsive to the interests of the knower. 41

“The only things we commonly see are those which we preperceive and the only things we preperceive are those which have been labeled for us, and the labels stamped on our mind. 44

We never (in adult life) experience pure, uninterrupted sensations; instead we interpret the sensations and perceive the most definite and probable thing which past experience has associated with this sensation. 45

“as thinkers with emotional reaction, we give what seems to us a still higher degree of reality to whatever things we select and emphasize and turn to with a will. 48

In James’ view, the source of our sense of reality rests in our interests (‘certain postulates give in our nature”), whatever satisfies these interests is believed in as real. 48

The objects we take cognizance of and believe in, as real, in the common sense world are objects which touch our biological needs, i.e., our practical interests. 48

“Whichever one of these aspects of its being I temporarily class it under, makes me unjust to the other aspects. But as I always am classing it under one aspect or another, I am always unjust, always partial, always exclusive. My excuse is necessity – the necessity of which my finite and practical nature lays upon me. 49-50

The so-called ‘essential properties’ of things are no more essential or true than the ones we neglect; they are only the more important, more practical, more serviceable properties for us. 50

“If the mystical truth that comes to a man proves to be a force that he can live by, what mandate have we of the majority to order him to live in some other way?” 78

“That theory will be most generally believed which, besides offering us objects able to account satisfactorily for our sensible experience, also offers those which appeal most urgently to our aesthetic, emotional and active needs. 85

The choice of a philosophy to be believed in is, at bottom, controlled by our passional nature – a philosophy is accepted and deemed rational when it brings us a feeling of ease. We feel at ease when certain theoretical demands are satisfied and our practical natures made relevant and given suitable guidelines for action. 87

James’ analysis of religious belief follows the familiar pattern – belief in God is rational for it leaves us with a feeling of ease and it furnishes an adequate stimulus to our practical natures. We feel at home in a situation when we attain a conception which orders and unifies our experience. the situation at issue here is not the meaning of a particular experience but the meaning of the whole universe and our place in it. the mind asks meaning of the whole universe and our place in it. the mind asks the ultimate “why” and “what” of the universe and the conception the mind forms to answer these questions is God. 88

In summary, religious belief is rational, since it fulfills our theoretical demands by answering the ultimate questions and it makes relevant our practical life (cooperation with God’s purposes). 88-89

Pragmatism is then, first of all, a methodological principle for determining the meanings of concepts.

“The whole function for philosophy ought to be to find out what difference it would make to you and to me at definite instances in our life, if this world-formula or that world-formula be the true one. 118

James begins his theory of truth in a decidedly noncontroversial way. He states tat truth is a property of certain of our ideas – true ideas agree with reality, false ones do not. 121

“The importance to human life of having true beliefs about matters of fact is a thing too notorious. We live in world of realities that can be infinitely useful or infinitely harmful. Ideas that tell us which of them to expect count as true ideas in all this primary sphere of verification, and the pursuit of such ideas is a primary human duty. 123

He concluded that our conceptions “characterize us more than they characterize things.” 130

“There are so many geometries, so many logics… so many classifications, each one of them good for so much and yet not good for everything, that the notion that even the truest formula may be a human device and not a literal transcript has dawned on us. 130

Since the function of ideas is to lead us from the more familiar, more fixed parts of experience to the novel, less fixed parts of experience, ideas which successfully lead are deemed true. 131

An idea predicts certain consequences and then leads us on a procedure of discovery to see if the prediction is true. the predictive accuracy of an idea is based on a generalization of past experience and it is appraised by its success in leading to an acquaintance-experience of concrete particulars. 142

“Men are once for all so made that they prefer a rational world to believe in and to live in. But rationality has at least four dimensions, intellectual, aesthetic, moral and practical; and to find a world rational to the maximal degree in all these respects simultaneously is no easy matter… The rationality we gain in one coin, we thus pay for in another; and the problem accordingly seems.. to resolve itself into that of getting a conception which will yield the largest balance of rationality. 151-152

We are not fully human beings without the society within which we exist. Our sociable nature is the essence of our being. How far could that be reproduced in any afterlife? 17

The social nature of humans creates the need for morality, not from a god but from the nature of human self-responsibility and social inter-relations. 21

Morality can be learned in the family, in the school and within the community. Religion have tended to offer a carrot and stick approach to morality – heavenly reward or hellish punishment and in the more short term, the pleasure or displeasure of a god, who can be prayed to or confessed to for forgiveness or offered a sacrifice for appeasement. The phrase “Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord’s is from the Bible, but vengeance is no part of morality, indeed it may be part of the strong emotion which needs to be controlled by a moral person. Fear is not a good ground for moral actions. 22

Is suicide ever justified? Can the decision to have an abortion be a moral one? Is a homosexual relationship potentially as moral as a heterosexual one? Should an adopted child be told the truth about his or her parentage? 25

An action supposedly for the good of the whole of society may cause appalling consequences to a minority – for instance the atomic bombs dropped at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the Second World War may be argued to have been for the greatest worldwide benefit of rapidly ending the war, despite appalling consequences for the victims of the bombs. The calculation of the greatest happiness of the greatest number misses out the individual qualities, such as passion for justice, courage, artistic brilliance, generosity. Nevertheless, the utilitarian principle is of value in its indication that virtue is essentially social. This is the starting point of a humanist approach to morality. 27

Human beings have to face illness, pain, anxiety, death; they are at risk of poverty, warfare and famine. In the face of this it is not surprising that people hunger for explanations of the human condition. To define the answer to these stats as god is only to shift the question one stage further away. 35

To Make people conscious of the urge to freedom, encourage their self-reliance and awaken in them the sense of individual dignity, inculcate the value of rationalism and secular morality, and spread the spit of cosmopolitan Humanism, by showing the people the way to solve their daily problems by popular initiative. The Radical Humanists will combat ignorance, fatalism, blind faith and the sense of individual hopelessness, which are the basis of authoritarianism. They will put all the social traditions and institutions to the test of the humanistic outlook. 81

“‘In fact, [the brain] is the known universe. Everything we know – from subatomic particles to distant galaxies – everything we feel – from love for our children to fear of enemy nations – is experienced and modeled in our brains. Without the brain, nothing – not quarks, not black holes, nor love, nor hatred – would exist for us.’” Dick Teresi 8

If we are storing everything that happens to us, what causes us to be unable to recall all of this detail? The primary cause of forgetting seems to be interference. As experiences are piled on top of each other, the memories interfere with each other and the search process breaks down for lack of clear-cut associations and patterns. The retrieval keys are lost.” 17

tools to improve memory: Repetition, Association/Connection, Intensity, Involvement

Creativity is seeing things that everyone around us sees while making connections that no one else has made. 21

The worst result of rejection is when it stops us from taking action . It can stop the creative process. One technique for handling this rejection is to think of the worst possible thing that could happen to you if you or your idea is rejected. Could they hang you? Draw and quarter you? Take away your children? Pour molten lava over your head? 33

“In the new forms of education, the previous emphasis must be reversed. Instead of first teaching the individual facts about other things, we must first teach him facts about himself – facts about how he can learn, think, recall, create, and solve problems.” Tony Buzan 39

Before beginning to write anything, you should be able to complete this sentence: I want (WHO) to do (WHAT) because (REASON). If you can’t write that sentence, you are not ready to start writing. If you can write it, you are ready to decide on strategy. 68

Values:
What is important to me?
What makes me happy?
What is there in my life that would leave a hole if it were gone?
If I could give any quality of my life, what would it be?
If I could give any quality to the world, what would it be?
What qualities do I admire most in my best friend?
What excites me?

Part of being comfortable with uncertainty means being comfortable with something that’s incomplete and unfinished. You want to avoid the headlong rush to try to achieve “perfection.” Author Anne Lamott is an advocate of purposefully creating a shitty first draft. That is, it’s better to complete a shitty first draft than to never complete a perfect one. In her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, Lamott explains the dangers of perfectionism: “Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you crammed and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a shitty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.” p. 84

“I don’t,” said Scrooge.

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!”