John Lubbock

“A wise system of education will at least teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.”

“We may sit in our library and yet be in all quarters of the earth.”

“What we see depends mainly on what we look for.”

“Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.”

“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”

“Our duty is to believe that for which we have sufficient evidence, and to suspend our judgment when we have not.”

“If we are ever in doubt what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.”

“If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done.”

“The whole value of solitude depends upon oneself; it may be a sanctuary or a prison, a haven of repose or a place of punishment, a heaven or a hell, as we ourselves make it.”

“A wise system of education will at last teach us how little man yet knows, how much he has still to learn.”

“If we succeed in giving the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow.”

“A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work.”

“The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn.”

“Sunsets are so beautiful that they almost seem as if we were looking through the gates of Heaven.”

“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cover for the game. Though we may all look at the same things, it does not all follow that we should see them.”

“We often hear of people breaking down from overwork, but in nine out of ten they are really suffering from worry or anxiety.”

“Your character will be what you yourself choose to make it.”

“In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time but the will that is wanting.”

“Art is unquestionably one of the purest and highest elements in human happiness. It trains the mind through the eye, and the eye through the mind. As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life.”

“I cannot, however, but think that the world would be better and brighter if our teachers would dwell on the Duty of Happiness as well as the Happiness of Duty; for we ought to be as cheerful as we can, if only because to be happy ourselves is a most effectual contribution to the happiness of others.”