Robert M. Hutchins Quotes

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.

Nature will not forgive those who fail to fulfill the law of their being. The law of human beings is wisdom and goodness, not unlimited acquisition.

Nobody can read Freud without realizing that he was the scientific equivalent of another nuisance, George Bernard Shaw.

It must be remembered that the purpose of education is not to fill the minds of students with facts... it is to teach them to think.

For those who are going to learn from books, learning the art of reading would seem to be indispensable.

Every act of every man is a moral act, to be tested by moral, and not by economic criteria.

When we listen to the radio, look at television and read the newspapers we wonder whether universal education has been the great boon that its supporters have always claimed it would be.

Whenever the urge to exercise comes upon me, I lie down for a while and it passes.

America's experiment with government of the people, by the people, and for the people depends not only on constitutional structure and organization but also on the commitment, person to person, that we make to each other.

It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness which would do credit to any college student, but the monkey is serious because he itches.

This is a do-it-yourself test for paranoia: you know you've got it when you can't think of anything that's your fault.

To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect.

The most distressing aspect of the world into which you are going is its indifference to the basic issues, which now, as always, are moral issues.

My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects.

A civilization in which there is not a continuous controversy about important issues is on the way to totalitarianism and death

We do not know what education can do for us, because we have never tried it.

We call Japanese soldiers fanatics when they die rather than surrender, whereas American soldiers who do the same thing are called heroes.

More free time means more time to waste. The worker who used to have only a little time in which to get drunk and beat his wife now has time to get drunk, beat his wife - and watch TV.

The best education for the best is the best education for all.

Whether four years of strenuous attention to football and fraternities is the best preparation for professional work has never been seriously investigated.

A student can win twelve letters at a university without learning how to write one.

It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education.

Football, fraternities and fun have no place in the university. They were introduced only to entertain those who shouldn't be in the university.

College football: I do not see the relationship of those highly industrialized affairs on Saturday afternoons to higher learning in America.

Nobody can decide for himself whether he is going to be a human being. The only question open to him is whether he will be an ignorant undeveloped one or one who has sought to reach the highest point he is capable of attaining.

Democracy has not failed; the intelligence of the race has failed before the problems the race has raised

Most people spend their time on the 'urgent' rather than on the 'important.'

Freedom of inquiry, freedom of discussion, and freedom of teaching - without these a university cannot exist.

Equality and justice, the two great distinguishing characteristics of democracy, follow inevitably from the conception of men, all men, as rational and spiritual beings.

The policy of the repression of ideas cannot work and never has worked. The alternative to it is the long difficult road of education. To this the American people have committed.

Mathematics ... is indispensable as an intellectual technique. In many subjects, to think at all is to think like a mathematician.

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment.

It has been said that we have not had the three R's in America, we had the six R's; remedial readin', remedial 'ritin' and remedial 'rithmetic.

...The task is overwhelming, and the chance is slight. We must take the chance or die.

Education can be dangerous. It is very difficult to make it not dangerous. In fact, it is almost impossible.

There is only one justification for universities, as distinguished from trade schools. They must be centers of criticism.

A world community can exist only with world communication, which means something more than extensive short-wave facilities scattered; about the globe. It means common understanding, a common tradition, common ideas, and common ideals.

It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things.

When I feel like exercising I just lie down until the feeling goes away.

Too few have the courage of my convictions.

The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.

...the fullest development of the highest powers of men can be achieved only in a world of peace.

On the principle laid down by Gilbert and Sullivan that when everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody; if everybody is abnormal, we don't need to worry about anybody.

The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives.

Anybody who feels at ease in the world today is a fool.

We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.

The policy of repression of ideas cannot work and never has worked.

Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes different points of view.