Studs Terkel Quotes

Einstein was a man who could ask immensely simple questions. And what his work showed is that when the answers are simple too, then you can hear God thinking.

Albert Einstein had learned to look into cameras as if he were meeting the eyes of the future beholders of his image.

If you could sit down with Jesus, you wouldn't need anybody else. He could answer all of your questions. Instead of Einstein and Louis Pasteur and Madame Curry, you could just have Jesus and he could answer for all of them.

Education was the most important value in our home when I was growing up. People don't always realize that my parents shared a sense of intellectual curiosity and a love of reading and of history.

If I could have anyone's mind for a day, I really can't think of anyone other than Einstein.

I should have been a son of Einstein.

I've always been fascinated by real scientists - Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and so many others - how they've come up with solutions to very complicated problems that nobody else can seem to figure out.

I love to learn, and at some level, there's something to learn from my books. And I love art and philosophy, so there's something philosophical about my fiction.

One of the things I sort of dreamt about awhile ago is that if Einstein were still alive, it would be absolutely wonderful to go to him and tell him about the discovery, and he would have been very pleased, I'm sure of that.

As more people become more intelligent they care less for preachers and more for teachers.

No doubt those who really founded modern science were usually those whose love of truth exceeded their love of power.

Wise men don't need concrete answers. By definition, they need wisdom." ~ Geraki

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

Incredulity is not wisdom.

No man really becomes a fool until he stops asking questions.

Even as a youngster, though, I could not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presented danger, the solution was ignorance. To me, it always seemed that the solution had to be wisdom. You did not refuse to look at danger, rather you learned how to handle it safely.

The real searcher after truth will not receive the old because it is old, or reject the new because it is new. He will not believe men because they are dead, or contradict them because they are alive. With him an utterance is worth the truth, the reason it contains, without the slightest regard to the author. He may have been a king or serf - a philosopher or servant, - but the utterance neither gains nor loses in truth or reason. Its value is absolutely independent of the fame or station of the man who gave it to the world.

Truth is the nursing mother of genius.

Doubt is one of the names of intelligence.

The focus of education should not be on suppressive information but on kindling the thirst for knowing.

To the intelligent man or woman, life appears infinitely mysterious. But the stupid have an answer for every question.

The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.

Knowledge is an addiction, as drink; knowledge does not bring understanding. Knowledge can be taught, but not wisdom; there must be freedom from knowledge for the coming of wisdom.

To be an atheist you have to have ten thousand times more imagination than if you are a religious fundamentalist. You must take the responsibility to acquire information, digest and use it to understand what you can.

It can be tempting to blame others for our loss of direction. We get lots of information about life but little education in life from parents, teachers, and other authority figures who should know better from their experience. Information is about facts. Education is about wisdom and the knowledge of how to love and survive.