A Quote by Sydney J. Harris

The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's leisure.

Sydney J. Harris

Quote Topics

Education Leisure Liberal Liberal Education Make Mind Place Pleasant Primary Purpose Spend Which

Quote Author

Sydney J. Harris
American - Journalist
September 14, 1917 - December 8, 1986

To teach is to learn twice. About all some parents accomplish in life is to send a child to Harvard. The purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place to spend one's leisure.

Joseph Joubert

The primary purpose of going to college isn't to get a great job. The primary purpose of college is to build a strong mind, which leads to greater self-awareness, capability, fulfillment, and service opportunities, which, incidentally, should lead to a better job.

Sean Covey

The antithesis between a technical and a liberal education is fallacious. There can be no adequate technical education which is not liberal, and no liberal education which is not technical.

Alfred North Whitehead

The primary purpose of education is not to teach you to earn your bread, but to make every mouthful sweeter.

James Rowland Angell

As Western nations became more prosperous, leisure, which had been put off for several centuries in favor of the pursuit of property, the means to leisure, finally began to be of primary concern. But, in the meantime, any notion of the serious life of leisure, as well as men's taste and capacity to live it, had disappeared.

Allan Bloom

Laws for the liberal education of youth, especially of the lower class of people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant.

John Adams

We have to make education a priority, but all this debate about education and testing is almost beside the point. We only spend a fraction of the money on education that we spend on arms buildups. Under a Kucinich administration, education becomes one of the top domestic priorities. We put money into it. We cause the government to be vitally involved in it. And we make sure our children have the love of knowledge.

Dennis Kucinich

The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.

Henry David Thoreau

In Burma, we need to improve education in the country - not only primary education, but secondary and tertiary education. Our education system is very very bad. But, of course, if you look at primary education, we have to think in terms of early childhood development that's going back to before the child is born - making sure the mother is well nourished and the child is properly nurtured.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Garner up pleasant thoughts in your mind, for pleasant thoughts make pleasant lives.

John Wilkins

The primary purpose of prayer is not to make requests. The primary purpose is to praise, to sing, to chant. Because the essence of prayer is a song, and man cannot live without a song. Prayer may not save us. But prayer may make us worthy of being saved.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

I am particularly interested in primary education because the state of affairs in primary education in this country is a cause for concern.

Azim Premji

The purpose of spiritual life is not to create some special state of mind. A state of mind is always temporary. The purpose is to work directly with the most primary elements of our body and our mind, to see the ways we get trapped by our fears, desires, and anger, to learn directly our capacity for freedom.

Jack Kornfield

After the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971, primary education was made free. We are now thinking to make education in the public sector free up to graduation level. We are also thinking of providing a light meal at primary and secondary schools in order to increase the student retention level.

Sheikh Hasina

A master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play; his labor and his leisure; his mind and his body; his education and his recreation. He hardly knows which is which.