Learning quotes are a wonderful thing. They hold their own inspirational power. The right quote about learning can fuel an insatiable hunger for knowledge. The kind of hunger that can only be satiated by a truly indulgent learning experience.
Luckily, there’s a treasure trove of learning quotes out there. And to save you the effort, we’ve cherry-picked the very best for your delectation. This collection includes quotes from Winston Churchill, Dr Seuss, John Cleese and many others. And if 100 quotes about learning aren’t enough, you can also explore:
- 65 Quotes About Workplace Learning
- 60 Inspirational Quotes About Teaching
- 70 Moving Quotes About Motivation
Who knows, perhaps these quotes will provide you with the motivation you need to supercharge your self-development. Let’s start the countdown!
Learning Quotes: The All-Time Top 20 Ranked
1. “There is no end to education. It is not that you read a book, pass an examination, and finish with education. The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
2. “Learning is a lifelong process.”
Full quote: “We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn.” — Peter Drucker
3. “I am always ready to learn although I do not always like being taught.” — Winston Churchill
4. “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi
5. “Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” — Albert Einstein
6. “One learns from books and example only that certain things can be done. Actual learning requires that you do those things.” — Frank Herbert
7. “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” — Xunzi (often attributed to Benjamin Franklin)
8. “Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” — Anthony J. D’Angelo
9. “One hour per day of study in your chosen field is all it takes. One hour per day of study will put you at the top of your field within three years. Within five years you’ll be a national authority. In seven years, you can be one of the best people in the world at what you do.” — Earl Nightingale
10. “You don’t understand anything until you learn it more than one way.” — Marvin Minsky
11. “He who laughs most, learns best.” — John Cleese
12. “Research shows that you begin learning in the womb and go right on learning until the moment you pass on. Your brain has a capacity for learning that is virtually limitless, which makes every human a potential genius.” — Michael J. Gelb
13. “Spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but the shape of the spoon.” — E. M. Forster
14. “Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.” — Henry Ford
15. “In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.” — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
16. “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” — Richard Feynman
17. “True teachers are those who use themselves as bridges over which they invite their students to cross; then, having facilitated their crossing, joyfully collapse, encouraging them to create their own.” — Nikos Kazantzakis
18. “That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something you’ve understood all your life, but in a new way.” — Doris Lessing
19. “Change is the end result of all true learning.” — Leo Buscaglia
20. “The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” — B.B. King
More Learning Quotes to Inspire You
21. “Being a student is easy. Learning requires actual work.” — William Crawford
22. “If you think education is expensive, try estimating the cost of ignorance.” — Howard Gardner
23. “The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” — Herbert Spencer
24. “Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.” — Leonardo da Vinci
25. “Education without application is just entertainment.” — Tim Sanders
26. “I am still learning.” — Michelangelo (age 87)
27. “Recipes tell you nothing. Learning techniques is the key.” — Tom Colicchio
28. “The ability to speak exactly is intimately related to the ability to know exactly.” — Wendell Berry
29. “It is what we know already that often prevents us from learning.” — Claude Bernard
30. “Learning is synthesizing seemingly divergent ideas and data.” — Terry Heick
31. “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” — Alvin Toffler
32. “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” — Harry S. Truman
33. “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” — Robert A. Heinlein
34. “You don’t learn to walk by following rules. You learn by doing, and by falling over.” — Richard Branson
35. “A man who asks is a fool for five minutes. A man who never asks is a fool for life.” — Chinese Proverb
36. “A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes
37. “He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.” — Confucius
38. “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
39. “The most useful piece of learning for the uses of life is to unlearn what is untrue.” — Antisthenes
40. “The purpose of learning is growth, and our minds, unlike our bodies, can continue growing as we continue to live.” — Mortimer Adler
41. “Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem. That is why young children before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily.” — Thomas Szasz
42. “An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin
43. “The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.” — Sydney J. Harris
44. “You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it.” — John Updike
45. “There is divine beauty in learning… To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps.” — Elie Wiesel
46. “Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today.” — Malcolm X
47. “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” — William Arthur Ward
48. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.” — John F. Kennedy
49. “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.” — Robert Frost
50. “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss
51. “The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth.” — Plutarch
52. “Those people who develop the ability to continuously acquire new and better forms of knowledge that they can apply to their work and to their lives will be the movers and shakers in our society for the indefinite future.” — Brian Tracy
53. “Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardour and attended with diligence.” — Abigail Adams
54. “If you are willing to learn, no one can help you. If you are determined to learn, no one can stop you.” — Anonymous
55. “The expert in anything was once a beginner.” — Helen Hayes
56. “Everything is a learning experience.” — Angus T. Jones
57. “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness.” — Daniel Kahneman
58. “The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one.” — Malcolm Forbes
59. “If knowledge is power, then learning is a superpower.” — Jim Kwik
60. “Cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero
61. “Learn continually. There’s always ‘one more thing’ to learn!” — Steve Jobs
62. “What we learn with pleasure we never forget.” — Alfred Mercier
63. “If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.” — Margaret Fuller
64. “Never let formal education get in the way of your learning.” — Mark Twain
65. “The most important attitude that can be found is the desire to go on learning.” — John Dewey
66. “Knowledge, like air, is vital to life. Like air, no one should be denied it.” — Alan Moore
67. “All the world is my school and all humanity is my teacher.” — George Whitman
68. “No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.” — Voltaire
69. “Learning is like rowing upstream: not to advance is to drop back.” — Anonymous
70. “The greatest teacher, failure is.” — Yoda
71. “The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.” — Carl Rogers
72. “Learning is not the product of teaching. Learning is the product of the activity of learners.” — John Holt
73. “While we teach, we learn.” — Seneca
74. “In times of change, learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” — Eric Hoffer
75. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela
76. “For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them.” — Aristotle
77. “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.” — Malala Yousafzai
78. “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” — Sir Ken Robinson
79. “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass
80. “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius
81. “Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.” — Lao Tzu
82. “The greatest sign of success for a teacher is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.'” — Maria Montessori
83. “The classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy.” — bell hooks
84. “Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” — Margaret Mead
85. “Curiosity is the engine of achievement.” — Sir Ken Robinson
86. “Adults need to know why they need to learn something before undertaking to learn it.” — Malcolm Knowles
87. “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
88. “We are not what we know but what we are willing to learn.” — Mary Catherine Bateson
89. “Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.” — Marie Curie
90. “Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself.” — John Dewey
91. “The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates
92. “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” — Maya Angelou
93. “Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.” — Isaac Asimov
94. “Knowing isn’t the most important thing — knowing how to find out is.” — Sugata Mitra
95. “Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience.” — David Kolb
96. “The biggest effects on student learning occur when teachers become learners of their own teaching.” — John Hattie
97. “Mastery is a mindset; it requires the capacity to see your abilities not as finite, but as infinitely improvable.” — Daniel Pink
98. “What any person in the world can learn, almost all persons can learn if provided with the appropriate prior and current conditions of learning.” — Benjamin Bloom
99. “Education is the transmission of civilization.” — Will Durant
100. “Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.” — Hermann Hesse
Final Words
There you have it. 100 learning quotes that inspire and delight. Which of these quotes resonates best with you? Which one are you going to turn into a motivational poster to hang in your office?
Let us know across our social channels (LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook). And before you go, don’t forget to check out our 70 quotes about motivation, 65 quotes about workplace learning and 60 quotes about teaching. Success will be yours in no time!
Here at Growth Engineering, we create engaging learning technology solutions — the kind that inspire the insights we’ve seen in this article. And that’s because we understand what makes learners tick. We’ve collected our findings in ‘Your Guide To: The Modern Learner’. Download it now!
