We are storytelling creatures, and as children we acquire language to tell those stories that we have inside us.

The foundations of any subject may be taught to anybody at any age in some form.

Grasping the structure of a subject is understanding it in a way that permits many other things to be related to it meaningfully. To learn structure in short, is to learn how things are related.

Education must, be not only a transmission of culture but also a provider of alternative views of the world and a strengthener of the will to explore them.

Apollo without Dionysus may indeed be a well-informed, good citizen but he's a dull fellow. He may even be 'cultured,' in the sense one often gets from traditionalist writings in education. . . . But without Dionysus he will never make and remake a culture.

The fish will be the last to discover water.

I would urge that the yeast of education is the idea of excellence, and the idea of excellence comprises as many forms as there are individuals, each of whom develops his own image of excellence. The school must have as one of its principal functions the nurturing of images of excellence.