Confucius describes the trap most revision falls into
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance” sounds like humility and is actually a technique. The most comfortable way to study is to re-read what you already half-know, because it produces a warm feeling of familiarity that is easily mistaken for competence. Finding the edges of your ignorance does the opposite — it is uncomfortable, it makes you feel worse about your preparation, and it is the only thing that tells you where the next hour should go. Voltaire’s line describes the same experience from further along: the better you get, the more of your own ignorance becomes visible.
Confucius four times, and four citations out of nineteen
Confucius has four of these nineteen lines, more than anyone else, and only four of the nineteen can be traced exactly. The two facts are connected. The Analects is a collection of remarks recorded by students after the fact, so even the genuine lines arrive at one remove — and that established, very early, a habit of attaching sayings about learning to whichever teacher sounds most plausible. The room is honest about which is which.
What is a good quote for exam motivation?
Samuel Johnson’s — “what we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.” It is honest about the sequence, and it comes from a man who spent nine years compiling a dictionary largely by himself.
Did Yeats say “education is not the filling of a pail”?
It is credited to him almost universally and does not appear in his work. The idea is much older — a version appears in Plutarch — so the label here is attributed rather than sourced.
Did Mahatma Gandhi say “Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”?
Much older than Gandhi. The Hitopadesha carries the same pairing in Sanskrit, and the English aphorism was in circulation under Isidore of Seville’s name by 1952, four years after Gandhi’s death. It is filed here as attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, which means widely credited and not traced to a primary source.
Did Benjamin Franklin say “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.”?
There is no evidence Franklin said this. The idea traces to the Chinese philosopher Xunzi, whose ranking runs from hearing to seeing to knowing to doing. It is filed here as attributed to Benjamin Franklin, which means widely credited and not traced to a primary source.