Compulsory Education Quotes

• The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Education, School, People

  17 Copy quote

• Avoid compulsion and let early education be a matter of amusement. Young children learn by games; compulsory education cannot remain in the soul.

  Plato

  Children, Games, Soul

  11 Copy quote

• Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Inspiring, Graduation

  43 Copy quote

• Continued adherence to a policy of compulsory education is utterly incompatible with efforts to establish lasting peace.

  Ludwig von Mises

  School, Effort, Adherence

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The free and prosperous commonwealth: an exposition of the ideas of classical liberalism”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary... But to survive, we must learn.

  W. Edwards Deming

  Inspirational, Leadership, Education

  "Deming: The Way We Knew Him". Book by Frank Voehl, February 28, 1995.

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Graduation, Education, Wall

  Sydney J. Harris (1985). “Pieces of Eight Pa”, Mariner Books

  165 Copy quote

  Show source

• If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Freedom, War

  Letter to Colonel Charles Yancey, 6 January 1816

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by forcible asportation and education of the infant against the will of the father.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Children, Freedom, Father

  Thomas Jefferson, Henry Augustine Washington (1854). “The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Miscellaneous: 4. Parliamentary manual; 5. The anas; 6. Miscellaneous papers”, p.493

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• The school of life embodies a compulsory education that no man escapes.

  George Edward Woodberry

  Education, School, Men

  George Edward Woodberry (1899). “Heart of Man”

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• A tax-supported, compulsory educational system is the complete model of the totalitarian state.

  Isabel Paterson

  Education, Historical, Liberty

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “God of the Machine”, p.258, Transaction Publishers

  54 Copy quote

  Show source

• We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.

  Nigel Short

  Education, Population, Significant

  7 Copy quote

• It was in making education not only common to all, but in some sense compulsory on all, that the destiny of the free republics of America was practically settled.

  James Russell Lowell

  Education, Destiny, America

  James Russell Lowell (2016). “Delphi Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell (Illustrated)”, p.1223, Delphi Classics

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you or pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?

  Isabel Paterson

  Children, Teaching, School

  Isabel Paterson (1993). “The God of the Machine”, p.261, Transaction Publishers

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Who besides a degraded rabble would voluntarily present itself to be graded and classified like meat? No wonder school is compulsory.

  John Taylor Gatto

  School, Meat, Wonder

  24 Copy quote

• By preventing a free market in education, a handful of social engineers - backed by the industries that profit from compulsory schooling: teacher colleges, textbook publishers, materials suppliers, et al. - have ensured that most of our children will not have an education, even though they may be thoroughly schooled.

  John Taylor

  Teacher, Children, College

  6 Copy quote

• Without education we are in a horrible and deadly danger of taking educated people seriously.

  Gilbert K. Chesterton

  Inspirational, Education, School

  "Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton : The Illustrated London News, 1905-1907". Book by Gilbert K. Chesterton, 1986.

  45 Copy quote

  Show source

• For what is meant by saying that a government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly, to fit the people for social life - to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this - a government ought to mold children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is and how the child may be molded into one.

  Herbert Spencer

  Children, Government, People

  "Social Statics: Great Essays".

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• Education: free and compulsory - what a way to learn logic!

  Frank Van Dun

  Learning, Way, Logic

  46 Copy quote

• A lovely thing about Christmas is that it's compulsory, like a thunderstorm, and we all go through it together.

  Garrison Keillor

  Love, Funny, Christmas

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• How have people come to be taken in by The Phenomenon of Man? We must not underestimate the size of the market for works of this kind [pseudoscience/'woo'], for philosophy-fiction. Just as compulsory primary education created a market catered for by cheap dailies and weeklies, so the spread of secondary and latterly tertiary education has created a large population of people, often with well-developed literary and scholarly tastes, who have been educated far beyond their capacity to undertake analytical thought.

  Peter Medawar

  Philosophy, Taken, Science

  6 Copy quote

• I had a terrible education. I attended a school for emotionally disturbed teachers.

  Woody Allen

  Inspirational, Funny, Education

  23 Copy quote

• Those who first introduced compulsory education into American life knew exactly why children should go to school and learn to read: to save their souls.... Consistent with this goal, the first book written and printed for children in America was titled Spiritual Milk for Boston Babes in either England, drawn from the Breasts of both Testaments for their Souls' Nourishment.

  Dorothy H Cohen

  Education, Spiritual, Children

  4 Copy quote