Metacognition Quotes

Know what you know and know that you don't know what you don't know — that is the characteristic of one who knows.

I think where I am not, therefore I am where I do not think. I am not whenever I am the plaything of my thought; I think of what I am where I do not think to think.

I am. I am, I exist, I think, therefore I am; I am because I think, why do I think? I don't want to think any more, I am because I think that I don't want to be, I think that I . . . because . . . ugh!

People all learn things differently, and sometimes imagination isn't considered as useful a tool as it can be in the learning process - especially in school in subjects like math and science.

To unfold the secret laws and relations of those high faculties of thought by which all beyond the merely perceptive knowledge of the world and of ourselves is attained or matured, is a object which does not stand in need of commendation to a rational mind.

If there were nothing but thought in you, you wouldn't even know you are thinking. You would be like a dreamer who doesn't know he is dreaming. When you know you are dreaming, you are awake within the dream.

It doesn't matter how smart you are unless you stop and think.

"Thinking about thinking" has to be a principle ingredient of any empowering practice of education.

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has.

First Thoughts are the everyday thoughts. Everyone has those. Second Thoughts are the thoughts you think about the way you think. People who enjoy thinking have those. Third Thoughts are thoughts that watch the world and think all by themselves. They’re rare, and often troublesome. Listening to them is part of witchcraft.

The object of studying philosophy is to know one's own mind, not other people's.

When you start talking about the known knowns and the unknown unknowns, you're thrown into a crazy meta-level discussion. Do I know what I know, do I know what I don't know, do I know what I don't know I don't know. It becomes a strange, Lewis Carroll - like nursery rhyme.

Learning results from what the student does and thinks, and only from what the student does and thinks. The teacher can advance learning only by influencing the student to learn.

...it's not just learning that's important. It's learning what to do with what you learn and learning why you learn things that matters.

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.

My work on what is called 'deep reading' explores the range of linguistic, cognitive, and affective processes that underlie not only the emergence of creative thought when we read but also the development and strengthening of capacities like empathy and critical analysis that we can apply to the rest of our lives.

What is education but a process by which a person begins to learn how to learn?

Programming allows you to think about thinking, and while debugging you learn learning.

I think the problem with people like this is that they are so stupid that they have no idea how stupid they are.

I think, therefore I am confused.

I believe that the development of language - of naming, categorization, conceptualization - destroys our ability to see as we age.

There is no real philosophy until the mind turns around and examines itself.

Children who plan their own goals, set weekly schedules, evaluate their own work build up their frontal cortex and take more control over their lives.

Man is clearly made to think. It is his whole dignity and his whole merit; and his whole duty is to think as he ought. And the order of thought is to begin with ourselves, and with our Author and our end.

Thought is the thought of thought.