Voltaire Quotes

Animals can learn, but it is not by learning that they become dogs, cats, or horses. Only man has to learn to become what he is supposed to be.

Nature is stronger than education.

We know that the gifts which men have do not come from the schools. If a man is a plain, literal, factual man, you can make a great deal more of him in his own line by education than without education, just as you can make a great deal more of a potato if you cultivate it than if you do not; but no cultivation in this world will ever make an apple out of a potato.

One thing I'm interested in is what shapes us: the people? The place where we live? It's both of those and more. That's what I keep coming back to.

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.

That animal part of us, it's the most interesting part. It's everything that has to do with drives, with things we can't stop ourselves from doing, with all the spaces where we're unable to reason with ourselves. It has its dark side, but there's a luminous side, too, which is the fact that we're just another species of animal.

Education makes a greater difference between man and man than nature has made between man and brute.

Nature is a definite thing. But nurture is just as powerful. It can really mess with you.

All art, all education, can be merely a supplement to nature.

The sentiments of an adult are compounded of a kernel of instinct surrounded by a vast husk of education.

The prevailing view is that geniuses are largely built, not born.

Children will grow up substantially what they are by nature--and only that.

The Wild still lingered in him and the wolf in him merely slept.

Education is the only interest worthy the deep, controlling anxiety of the thoughtful man.

But if we believe what we profess concerning the worth of the individual, then the idea of individual development within a framework of ethical purpose must become our deepest concern, our national preoccupation, our passion, our obsession. We must think of education as relevant for everyone everywhere - at all ages and in all conditions of life.

The most valuable of all capital is that invested in human beings

Education is the leading human souls to what is best, and making what is best out of them; and these two objects are always attainable together, and by the same means; the training which makes man happiest in themselves also makes them most serviceable to others.

Development does not start with goods; it starts with people and their education, organization, and discipline. Without these three, all resources remain latent, untapped, potential.

I find it valid to understand man as an animal before I am prepared to know him as a man.

Education is the great engine to personal development.

My subject is the educated imagination, and education is something that affects the whole person, not bits and pieces of him .

It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.

Man is the nobler growth our realms supply, And souls are ripened in our northern sky.

An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man, the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in which they live.

Men are born, and then they're formed.