Instruction Quotes - Page 7

• In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind.

  Edmund Burke

  Wisdom, Past, Errors

  Edmund Burke (1790). “Reflections on the Revolution in France: And on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to Have Been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris”, p.208

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• In the end, history, especially British history with its succession of thrilling illuminations, should be, as all her most accomplished narrators have promised, not just instruction but pleasure.

  Simon Schama

  Illumination, History, Narrators

  Simon Schama (2000). “A History of Britain: At the edge of the world? 3000 BC-AD 1603”, Miramax

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• Schools teach you to imitate. If you don't imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade. Here, in college, it was more sophisticated, of course; you were supposed to imitate the teacher in such a way as to convince the teacher you were not imitating, but taking the essence of the instruction and going ahead with it on your own. That got you A's. Originality on the other hand could get you anything -- from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.

  Robert M. Pirsig

  Education, Teacher, School

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• Superior leaders get things done with very little motion. They impart instruction not through many words, but through a few deeds. They keep informed about everything but interfere hardly at all. They are catalysts, and though things would not get done as well if they were not there, when they succeed they take no credit. And, because they take no credit, credit never leaves them.

  Laozi

  Leadership, Done, Deeds

  "Timeless Principles for Personal, Career, and Family Success" by Jim Clemmer, (p. 137), 1999.

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• In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him... instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Learning, Order, Understanding

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• Instruction, and advice, and commands will profit little, unless they are backed up by the pattern of your own life. Your children will never believe you are in earnest, and really wish them to obey you, so long as your actions contradict your counsel... Think not your children will practise what they do not see you do. You are their model picture, and they will copy what you are... will seldom learn habits which they see you despise, or walk in paths in which you do not walk yourself.

  J. C. Ryle

  Children, Believe, Learning

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• It's exciting to see how fast your kids learn and grow. I'm not too worried about them, particularly the ones who like to break rules and don't follow instructions; those are the ones that will do just fine because they know what's important to them.

  Michael Dell

  Learning, Kids, Important

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• The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.

  Christopher Hitchens

  Religious, Art, Pain

  Christopher Hitchens (2012). “Long Live Hitch: Three Classic Books in One Volume”, p.208, Atlantic Books Ltd

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• It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.

  John Updike

  Mean, Eye, Space

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• I really see no harm which can come of giving our children a little knowledge of physiology. ... The instruction must be real, based upon observation, eked out by good explanatory diagrams and models, and conveyed by a teacher whose own knowledge has been acquired by a study of the facts; and not the mere catechismal parrot-work which too often usurps the place of elementary teaching.

  Thomas Huxley

  Education, Teacher, Children

  Thomas Henry Huxley (1882). “Science and Culture: And Other Essays”

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• People of good character are not all going to come down on the same side of difficult political and social issues. Good people - people of character and moral literacy - can be conservative, and good people can be liberal. We must not permit our disputes over thorny political questions to obscure the obligation we have to offer instruction to all our young people in the area in which we have, as a society, reached a consensus: namely, on the importance of good character, and some of its pervasive particulars.

  William Bennett

  Character, Issues, People

  "The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories". Book edited by William Bennett, 1993.

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• So much does the moral health depend upon the moral atmosphere that is breathed, and so great is the influence daily exercised by parents over their children by living a life before their eyes, that perhaps the best system of parental instruction might be summed up in these two words: 'Improve thyself.'

  Samuel Smiles

  Children, Character, Eye

  Samuel Smiles (1859). “Self-help; with illustrations of character and conduct”, p.295

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• Self is the opaque veil that hides the Face of God from us. It can be removed only in spiritual experience, never by mere instruction.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Spiritual, Atheist, Self

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• It is essential to seek out enemy agents who have come to conduct espionage against you and to bribe them to serve you. Give them instructions and care for them. Thus doubled agents are recruited and used.

  Sun Tzu

  War, Following Instructions, Giving

  "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu, translated by Chow-Hou Wee, (Chapter XIII), 2003.

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• The affairs of the world will go on forever, do not delay the practice of meditation.
  Once you have met with the profound instructions from a meditation master,
  with single pointed determination, set about realizing the Truth.

  Milarepa

  Determination, Practice, Profound

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• Any attempt to disturb the deadly routine of instruction is looked upon as sabotage. And the notion that the aims and functions of education should be determined in the local community by a close and continuous discussion among students, faculty, administration, and citizens is so visionary that it is not even seriously considered.

  Charles Ferguson

  Justice, Diversity, Community

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• Equality! Where is it, if not in education? Equal rights! They cannot exist without equality of instruction.

  Frances Wright

  Rights, Justice, Diversity

  Frances Wright (1829). “Course of popular lectures; with 3 addresses on various public occasions, and a reply to the charges against the French reformers of 1789”, p.25

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• As to my success here I cannot say much as yet: the Indians seem generally kind, and well-disposed towards me, and are mostly very attentive to my instructions, and seem willing to be taught further.

  David Brainerd

  Congratulations, Taught, Kind

  David Brainerd, Jonathan Edwards, Alexander Anderson (1854). “The Life of David Brainerd, Missionary to the Indians: Chiefly Taken from His Own Diary, and Other Private Writings”, p.252

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• For the sole true end of education is simply this: to teach men how to learn for themselves; and whatever instruction fails to do this is effort spent in vain.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Educational, Men, Effort

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• we defer therefore till this time twelve month to avail ourselves of the instruction of that place, and particularly of your kindness in the two branches of Botany and Natural history to which we wish him particularly to apply.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Kindness, Educational, Two

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• A system of general instruction, which shall reach every description of our citizens, from the richest to the poorest, as it was the earliest, so will it be the latest, of all the public concerns in which I shall permit myself to take an interest.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Education, Citizens, Permit

  Thomas Jefferson, Nathaniel Francis Cabell, Joseph Carrington Cabell (1856). “Early History of the University of Virginia: As Contained in the Letters of Thomas Jefferson and Joseph C. Cabell, Hitherto Unpublished; with an Appendix, Consisting of Mr. Jefferson's Bill for a Complete System of Education and Other Illustrative Documents; and an Introduction, Comprising a Brief Historical Sketch of the University, and a Biographical Notice of Joseph C. Cabell”, p.106

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• If you buy a book on golf instruction buy the thinnest book you can find. The thinner the book, chances are the easier and more elementary the instruction. It can do one of two things: help you more or hurt you less. Both are good compared to the alternative.

  Chi Chi Rodriguez

  Hurt, Book, Golf

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• There was clearly great charm and worth in a sport so quaintly perverse in its basic instructions. Hit down to make the ball rise. Swing easy to make it go far. Finish high to make it go straight.

  John Updike

  Sports, Golf, Swings

  John Updike (2011). “Golf Dreams: Writings on Golf”, p.24, Random House

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• It is not book learning young men need, nor instruction about this and that, but a stiffening of the vertebra which will cause them to be loyal to a trust, to act promptly, concentrate their energies, do a thing.

  Elbert Hubbard

  Inspirational, Book, Men

  "A Message to Garcia" (1899)

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• No religious reading, instruction or exercise, shall be prescribed or practiced [in the elementary schools] inconsistent with the tenets of any religious sect or denomination.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Religious, Reading, School

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