Quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing.

We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and col

Summary

This quote highlights the limitations of traditional schooling and emphasizes the importance of gaining practical knowledge and real understanding rather than simply memorizing words and regurgitating information. It suggests that students are often confined within the walls of educational institutions, spending years acquiring a superficial knowledge that lacks substance. Despite the accumulation of words and information, the quote suggests that true wisdom and understanding are not obtained through this process, indicating a need to go beyond the confines of academia to gain genuine knowledge.

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Liked the quote? Share it with your friends.

Random Quotations

Have you any notion how many books are written about women i

Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe?

Men Women

I went to a military school between the ages of six and 12 a

I went to a military school between the ages of six and 12 and later into the air force. You learn discipline and strength of character.

Strength

My wife and I, unlike many intellectuals, spent five years w

My wife and I, unlike many intellectuals, spent five years working on assembly lines. We came to fully understand the criticisms of the industrial age, in which you are an appendage of a machine that sets the pace.

Age

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the com

Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.

Creativity Simplicity Musician

Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one ye

Pleasure for one hour, a bottle of wine. Pleasure for one year a marriage; but pleasure for a lifetime, a garden.

Chinese Proverb

Pleasure

What you call life is but a dream, and reality is relative.

What you call life is but a dream, and reality is relative.

Wayne Gerard Trotman

Reality Belief Realization Science Fiction Real Dream Life Experience Life And Living Relativity Reality Of Life Sci Fi Scifi

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow

It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less with baldness.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward t

I have made the tough decisions, always with an eye toward the bottom line. Perhaps it's time America was run like a business.

Business

Extremists think communication means agreeing with them.

Extremists think communication means agreeing with them.

I can't do the same movies all my life. I'm conscious of tha

I can't do the same movies all my life. I'm conscious of that. But it's a trade-off. 'Dear John' allowed me to do movies I've wanted to do. You learn to balance it out. I'm still learning. Only now am I getting to do the kinds of movies that I have wanted to do. So it's a steady climb. You don't jump into a Soderbergh film.

Learning

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to ki

Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?

Patriotism Man Rights Stupidity Killing

Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and li

Over-commercialization and its resulting restrictions and limitations can be very damaging and distorting to the inherent nature of the individual. I did not deliberately abandon my fans, nor did I deliberately abandon any responsibilities.

Nature