Learning Quotes

“I wanted, for so long, for someone to understand me better than I understood myself, to take control of me, to save me, to make it all better. I thought that the hardest part of a loving, mutually healing relationship would be showing my vulnerable, raw spots to a person, even though I'd been hurt so many times before. This has not been the hardest part. The actual hardest part has been realizing that no one, no matter how compassionate and kind they are, will say the perfect things always. Myself included. The hardest part has been learning to communicate what I need, to hear what others need, to tell others how to tell me what they need. Intimacy takes a lot of communication. We all have triggers. I don't know your triggers and you don't know mine. No matter how much I love or trust you, you cannot possibly know exactly the words I need to hear, the words I don't want to hear, and the way I like to be touched. And how strange that we expect these things of each other. How strange, and self-sabotaging, that we refuse to get into relationships and friendships with people unless they treat us in just that perfect way. We've been raised to want fairy tales. We've been raised to wait for flawless saviors to rescue us. But the savior isn't flawless and the savior is not coming. The savior is you. The savior is still learning. The savior is never done learning. The savior is a human being. Forget perfect. Forget flawless. And start speaking your truth. Start speaking what you want and how you want it. And start asking and listening, really listening, to what the people around you say. Maybe, then, we will stop abandoning and hurting each other. Maybe, then, there's hope for us.”

“Remember that a little learning can be a pleasant thing. Italy gives much, in beauty, gaiety, diversity of arts and landscapes, good humor and energy—willingly, without having to be coaxed or courted. Paradoxically, she requires (as do other countries, probably more so) and deserves some preparation as background to enhance her pleasures. It is almost impossible to read a total history of Italy; there was no united country until a hundred years ago, no single line of power, no concerted developments. It is useful, however, to know something about what made Siena run and stop, to become acquainted with the Estes and the Gonzagas, the Medicis and the Borgias, the names that were the local history. It helps to know something about the conflicts of the medieval church with the Holy Roman Empire, of the French, Spanish and early German kings who marked out large chunks of Italy for themselves or were invited to invade by a nervous Italian power. Above all, it helps to turn the pages of a few art and architecture books to become reacquainted with names other those of the luminous giants.The informed visitors will not allow himself to be cowed by the deluge of art. See what interests or attracts you; there is no Italian Secret Service that reports on whether you have seen everything. If you try to see it all except as a possible professional task, you may come to resist it all. Relax, know what you like and don’t like—not the worst of measures—and let the rest go.”

“I'm always learning something. Learning never ends.”

“Strut' was an amazing experience, but it was also a learning experience, because reality TV can be crazy.”

“There are several different kinds of painful feelings that we might experience, and learning to distinguish and relate to these feelings of discomfort or pain is an important part of meditation practice, because it is one of the very first things that we open to as our practice develops.”

“Vasudeva listened with great attention. Listening carefully, he leteverything enter his mind, birthplace and childhood, all that learning,all that searching, all joy, all distress. This was among theferryman's virtues one of the greatest: like only a few, he knew howto listen. Without him having spoken a word, the speaker sensed howVasudeva let his words enter his mind, quiet, open, waiting, how hedid not lose a single one, awaited not a single one with impatience,did not add his praise or rebuke, was just listening. Siddhartha felt,what a happy fortune it is, to confess to such a listener, to burry inhis heart his own life, his own search, his own suffering.”

“You start learning English in fifth grade. I was 12. But even before then I was listening to American music. My neighbor was a really big hip-hop fan, so he taught me everything around hip-hop.”

“I know those challenges that come up from time to time in life are our little learning tools, our little steppingstones. If we didn't have those things in our life, how would we learn anything? We would just be walking around like nothing. We need those obstacles in our life because I know one thing - I'm a much better person for them.”

“That's not all our crops can do. We are also learning how to transform plants into factories. We can now raise plants that will create enzymes that would otherwise be created in chemical factories.”

“Exploring many different avenues, especially setting new challenges, has always fueled my passion for learning something new.”

“We’re living in topsy-turvy times, and I think that what causes the topsy-turvy feeling is inadequacy of old forms of thought to deal with new experiences. I’ve heard it said that the only real learning results from hang-ups, where instead of expanding the branches of what you already know, you have to stop and drift laterally for a while until you come across something that allows you to expand the roots of what you already know. Everyone’s familiar with that. I think the same thing occurs with whole civilizations when expansion’s needed at the roots.”

“I'm learning to hunt with rifles, because if you think about it, hunting gets you the healthiest meat - organic, free-range food. It's a totally yuppie spin on what I thought was kind of a redneck occupation.”

“Once you learn to quit, it becomes a habit.”

“The thing about traveling alone, is that you run into your insecurities and fears times ten the normal! You run into all the good things and all the bad things about yourself on a daily basis, and are allowed the opportunity to truly become your own friend. Traveling alone is a learning process; some people travel for leisure, I travel to run into myself!”

“There is no great companion like a book.”

“Don’t worry if people think you’re crazy. You are crazy. You have that kind of intoxicating insanity that lets other people dream outside of the lines and become who they’re destined to be.”

“Magic to me is you make a movie and it's all great and it clicks, and at the end of the day you feel like you're having an experience that is positive and that you're learning from.”

“Maybe our young people are not as vacuous as we would like to lead ourselves to believe - that all they're interested in is hairdos and looking at other beautiful people. Maybe they're interested in learning something.”

“I say, "Well then I don't know if it was real, and that makes me feel like I'm going insane again.""Absolutely it was real. It was a real, partial picture. Because it ended preemptively, things you would have learned about him in the relationship, you are instead learning in the breakup. You have learned that he has a desperate desire for intimacy and then a desperate desire for the cave. He will get lonely there eventually and come back.""To me?"He doesn't pause. "To someone new.""And I'll have to watch another girl?""You will have to, but you will also know what lies ahead for that poor girl.”

“My attention is constantly being caught! I'm constantly learning, constantly becoming fascinated by new things - I'm lucky that I read incredibly quickly and absorb a lot of information easily, because otherwise I don't think I'd ever get my head out of a book!”