Roger Ascham Quotes

To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do is style.

It is costly wisdom that is brought by experience.

As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.

A man reacheth not to excellence with one language.

He hazardeth much who depends for his learning on experience. An unhappy master, he that is only made wise by many shipwrecks; a miserable merchant, that is neither rich nor wise till he has been bankrupt. By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.

Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.

There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

Mathematical Mark all mathematical heads, which be only and wholly bent to those sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, and how unapt to serve in the world.

In mine opinion, love is fitter than fear, gentleness better than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning.

Charles V used to say that "the more languages a man knew, he was so many more times a man." Each new form of human speech introduces one into a new world of thought and life. So in some degree is it in traversing other continents and mingling with other races. As a hawk flieth not high with one wing, even so a man reacheth not to excellence with one tongue.

Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.

I remember when I was young, in the north, they went to the grammar school little children: they came from thence great lubbers: always learning, and little profiting: learning without book everything, understanding within the book little or nothing.

To be rash is to be bold without shame and without skill.

It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had--yea, and that among very wise men--to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children.

The least learned, for the most part, have been always most ready to write.

Young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning.

By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.

He that will write well in any tongue must follow this counsel of Aristotle: to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.

A man, groundly learned already, may take much profit himself in using by epitome to draw other men’s works, for his own memory sake, into short room.

Italianate Englishmen are incarnate devils ... for they first lustfully condemn God, then scornfully mock his word, and also spitefully hate and hurt all the well wishers thereof.... They count as fables the holy mysteries of religion.

Marke all Mathematicall heades, which be onely and wholy bent to those sciences, how solitarie they be themselues, how vnfit to liue with others, & how vnapte to serue in the world.

It is good manners, not rank, wealth, or beauty, that constitute the real lay.