By seeking and blundering we learn.

Instruction does much, but encouragement everything."(Letter to A.F. Oeser, Nov. 9, 1768)

They teach in academies far too many things, and far too much that is useless.

Aptitudes are assumed, they should become accomplishments. That is the purpose of all education.

If we take people only as they are, then we make them worse; if we treat them as if they were what they should be, then we bring them to where they can be brought.

A talent is formed in stillness, a character in the world’s torrent.

In the end we retain from our studies only that which we practically apply.

Is it life, I ask, is it even prudence, To bore thyself and bore the students?

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.