Adlai Stevenson

Most of all we need an education system which will create an educated mind. This is a mind not simply a repository of information and skills, but a mind that is a source of creative skepticism, characterized by a willingness to challenge old assumptions and to be challenged, a spaciousness of outlook, and convictions that are deeply held, but which new facts and new experiences can always modify. It means an educational system which does not simply equip the students to adjust to society, but which enables the student to challenge and to modify, and at times reject, if necessary, the received wisdom of his elders.

Instead of going to Paris to attend lectures, go to the public library, and you won’t come out for twenty years, if you really wish to learn.

Being a teacher is not what I do, it’s who I am.

I came in early every day for six months till I intercepted the letter from UCLA saying they’d never heard of me. I replaced it with a letter that said I’d graduated.

I would like to be a scholar in whatever I do, a scholar is never finished, he is always seeking and I am always seeking.

I don’t care what their [Guns N’ Roses] record is. If you need a blood donor and the only person who can give you a transfusion is Hitler, you take the blood.

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.

I call myself a teacher because they want me to call myself a teacher, but actually, what I’m doing is I’m studying.

Education… has produced a vast population able to read but unable to distinguish what is worth reading.

There is no education like adversity.

You are your own teacher. Investigate yourself to find the truth – inside, not outside. Knowing yourself is most important.

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.

Empower yourselves with a good education, then get out there and use that education to build a country worthy of your boundless promise.

We believe, that is, you and I, that education is not an expense. We believe it is an investment.

My first task is to help students reject 18 years of poor learning that teaches them that knowledge is a product rather than a process.