Nelson Mandela once said, “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” As someone who had first hand experience with changing the world around him, and the impact that education can have on an entire nation, Mr. Mandela was contributing one to a growing list of great education quotes that can help to illustrate the importance of learning and why it matters today. Reading and using quotes on education help to frame the world of knowledge in a way that makes sense to us, or illustrates properties of education that we may not have otherwise considered. “The world is a book,” wrote Augustine of Hippo, “and those who do not travel read only one page.” We owe much to these quotes on education because they have preserved the knowledge of great thinkers and great teachers throughout history so that we can enjoy the essence of their brilliance in a small, encapsulated group of words.

Walter Cronkite was quoted as saying, “Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.” Educational quote collections can provide you with some of the best and brightest words on the subject of education, and what it meant in their time and in our own. Some educational quotes can come from figures who were controversial in their time, such as “Intelligence plus character; that is the goal of true education,” which was spoken by Martin Luther King Jr. Other quotes on education come from established authors, known for their work and how it expanded our imaginations, such as when C.S. Lewis said, “The mask of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles, but to irrigate deserts.”

What Mr. King and Mr. Lewis share in common is their ability to understand the importance of education, and supply great quotes on education that we can take to heart today. A quote on education is a short, but nevertheless revelatory piece of speech or text that we could all learn from, such as when Robert Frost said, “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.” Reading quotes on education can open our minds to new ways to educate others, and new ways in which we can educate ourselves, such as this education quote from beloved author Mark Twain; “I will never let my schooling interfere with my education.”