Robert M. Hutchins

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

“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.”

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

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

“A liberal education... frees a man from the prison-house of his class, race, time, place, background, family and even his nation.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“The three major administrative problems on a campus are sex for the students, athletics for the alumni, and parking for the faculty.”

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

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

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

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