USELESS UNLESS USED

"Information is not knowledge."

Albert Einstein, 20th century German-born theoretical physicist.

It can lead to knowledge, even action once put to use.

However, not learned and applied once learned, there is little value.

KNOW THIS

"Take the attitude of a student, never be too big to ask questions, never know too much to learn something new."

Augustine "Og" Mandino, 20th century American author.

One, because you're not as big, as important as you think you are, and two, because there is way more you don't know than that you do.

ADVICE I SUGGEST YOU NOT TAKE

"Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey's end."

Marcus Tullius Cicero, 1st century BC Roman politician.

Were you to do as Cicero suggests you would indeed be at the end of your journey.

No animal stops doing what they do until the moment they die; why should humans?

We are put on this earth to learn and there is no legitimate reason to stop learning until, like all animals, we die.

NOT LEARNING FROM YOUR MISTAKES IS THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF ALL

"A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing."

George Bernard Shaw, late 19th/early 20th century Irish playwright.

True for many reasons including the fact that making mistakes suggests an effort, the resulting mistakes notwithstanding.

And even more than that, because we can learn so much from whatever mistakes we make, assuming we choose to do so.

WHAT YOU'LL NEVER KNOW

"No man is ever old enough to know better."

Holbrook Jackson, late 19th/early 20th century British journalist.

(You too ladies.)

But at least I'm old enough to know this is true.

WHO CENSORS YOU?

"The only valid censorship of ideas is the right of people not to listen."

Tommy Smothers, American comedian/musician.

Often the result of a free, open, and honest exchange of ideas are better ideas than would happen were those individual ideas censored.

Not always but more than enough to make make widespread censorship a bad idea.

Take this blog as example.

I have the right to post my ideas while you have the right to decide whether or not you will read them.

Win/win and that's a pretty good idea!

MIND OVER MORALS??

"To educate a man in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society."

Theodore Roosevelt, 26th president of the United States.

How complete is your education?

A PRICE WORTH PAYING

"Age is a very high price to pay for maturity."

Tom Stoppard, British playwright

While I wish when I was young I knew then what I know now, the fact is I didn't and few ever do.

If we're smart, the older we get the more useful things we learn, among them the good parts of maturity.

If we're smart.

Be smart.

NOT JUST ROCKET SCIENCE

"Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing."

Wernher von Braun, 20th century German American rocket scientist

If this is not true for you it should be.

Know what you don't know and then research what you must to learn what that is.

YOU CANNOT FAKE AND . . .

"You cannot create experience. You must undergo it."

Albert Camus, 20th century French philosopher

And when you have undergone it you can and should learn from it.

Sadly, many never do.

WHAT YOU WILL, NOT WHAT YOU DON'T

"Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance."

Confucius 5th century BC Chinese teacher/philosopher

You might think ignorance implies stupidity.

It doesn't.

Ignorance is only about what you don't yet know and there's no limit on how much you can know. 

THE AMAZING UNKNOWN!

"It is the unknown that excites the ardor of scholars, who, in the known alone, would shrivel up with boredom."

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) American Modernist poet.

You (hopefully) have a good education, one that allows you to continually be amazed at all the new things you have yet to learn.

WHY LEARN?

"Studies serve for delight, for ornaments, and for ability."

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) British statesman/philosopher.

Ability for what your knowledge will enable you to do.

Ornament for the favorable view others will have of you because of what you know.

And delight for the enjoyment you will feel resulting from the interesting things you will learn.

For all these reasons your education should never be considered complete. 

SOMETHING YOU MAY NOT KNOW

"It is what we learn, after we think we know it all, that counts."

Unknown.

I don't know that I understood this the day I graduated college. 

Maybe I thought my education ended that day.

But if either were true that was irrefutable evidence of how little I actually did know; how much I still did, still do, have to learn.

You don't have to go to college, but if you do, don't let it get in the way of your education.

BECAUSE THEY DON'T AGREE . . .

"We owe almost all our knowledge not to those who have agreed but to those who have differed."

Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832) British clergyman/sportsman/author.

Listen carefully to those whose opinions are different from yours.

They are your greatest source of knowledge.

DO YOU KNOW THIS?

"Ask the young. They know everything."

Joseph Joubert (1754-1824) French moralist.

Worse than knowing this is believing it to be true, no matter your age.

We all have much more to learn than we have to teach.

YOU'VE GOT A LOT TO LEARN

"Only the educated are free."

Epictetus (50-120) Greek philosopher.

Free to be and do what they want to be and do.

And only the educated know the more they are is never as much as they can be.

HAVE YOU LEARNED THIS?

"All of us, who are worth anything, spend our manhood unlearning the follies, or expiating the mistakes of our youth."

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) English poet.

If you're not sure what this means you have much to learn.

YOU'LL LEARN; ONE WAY OR THE OTHER YOU WILL LEARN

"The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct."

Marcus Tulius Cicero (106-43 BC) Writer, politician and great roman orator.

And some of the wise occasionally learn by necessity because they stupidly failed to learn using their wisdom.

We all learn, the question is, how?

GOOD NEWS IF YOU THINK YOURSELF WISE!

"Time ripens all things; no man is born wise."

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) 

Spanish novelist/dramatist/poet.

This means there are no limits to how wise you can become.

The first step is to recognize you are not as wise as you think.

The second step is to be open to all new ideas and things.

There are, of course, many more steps but do this much and you'll be wise enough to discover them yourself.