There is a funny story I always tell my students...when I came for the first time to the US. I didn’t speak English (Only Spanish) & I saw on every door the word “exit” which in Spanish means Success = Exito. And then I said :”No wonder Ameri...
I don't believe in colleges and universities. I believe in libraries because most students don't have any money. When I graduated from high school, it was during the Depression and we had no money. I couldn't go to college, so I went to the library t...
I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else. T...
By the time these students enter the workforce, many of the jobs they will apply for ill be in industries that don't even exist yet. That's a hard future to prepare someone for. Teachers have their sights set on the real goal: not to produce Ivy Leag...
We had a great dramatics department in school, so I did a lot of plays and theatre there. Later, when I was the captain of our student's ward, I figured out that if you find something you really love to do, you don't have to work for the rest of your...
There was a seminar for advanced students in Zürich that I was teaching and von Neumann was in the class. I came to a certain theorem, and I said it is not proved and it may be difficult. Von Neumann didn’t say anything but after five minutes he r...
When I address admitted students each spring, I ask them to consider two questions: Why would Harvard be the right place for the person I am? Why would it be the right place for the person that I want to become? These questions, in my mind, get at th...
Great art comes from passion, from a need to expose human spirit in the face of mortality, the small cruelties and heroisms that make up daily life -- that's where great work comes from, and if you enable students in this way to discover those impuls...
I have seen many phases of life; I have moved in imperial circles, I have been a Minister of State; but if I had to live my life again, I would always remain in my laboratory, for the greatest joy of my life has been to accomplish original scientific...
Harry Potter: [to the D.A. members] Working hard is important, but there's something that matters even more. Believing in yourself. Think of it this way: Every great wizard in history has started out as nothing more than we are now. Students. If they...
Harry Potter: [teaching Dumbledore's Army] Working hard is important, but there's something else that's even more important: believing in yourself. Look at it this way: every great wizard in history has started out as nothing more than we are now - s...
Frank: [recounting his unrequited love for his student] He fell in love with another man,a colleague of mine; Larry Sugarman. Sheryl: Who's Larry Sugarman? Frank: Probably the second highest regarded Proust scholar in th US. Richard: Who's number 1? ...
Mr. Turkentine: Of course you don't know. You don't know because only *I* know. If you knew and I didn't know, then you'd be teaching me instead of me teaching you - and for a student to be teaching his teacher is presumptuous and rude. Do I make mys...
I was influenced by many, many different people in my student years, and I was always, I guess, immersed in a Navy environment, and so, obviously, that had a big impact when I decided what I wanted to do was go and be a Navy pilot. I was very familia...
O friend unseen, unborn, unknown, Student of our sweet English tongue, Read out my words at night, alone: I was a poet, I was young. Since I can never see your face, And never shake you by the hand, I send my soul through time and space To greet you....
Hence [through No Child Left Behind] the state has been given power...to fire all teachers and principles. So here we have an unusual case in which the students are engaged in the performances, but the high stakes have been displaced onto the teacher...
Just as novice musicians must spend many hours practicing basic skills like playing scales or mastering difficult passages--and frequently do so in the presence of their teacher, receiving immediate and individualized feedback--so must our students s...
Wolf's wool is the best wool, but it cannot be sheared, because the wolf will not comply. With knowledge as with wolves' surliness, the student studies voluntarily, refusing to be less than individual. He "gives his opinion and then rests upon it"; h...
Neither the student nor I would mind in the least fair criticism and correction, but no one will permit himself to suffer criticism and correction from another whose knowledge and understanding of the subject is less than the one criticized and corre...
The yogic scriptures paint a picture of perfection, and perfection can be your aim, but I can tell you sad stories about myself and others who have entered into a state of premature holiness with unpleasant consequences.
This is my worst fear. It’s not keeping my students safe from terrorists, it’s knowing what to do when the Chaplain comes to take Johnny out of class because not letting the terrorists win means sometimes the good guys are going to die. And those...
