Inspiring (formative) quotes, thoughts, readings - please add yours

[Meriwether]

I've started keeping a homeschooling/education journal nearby when reading.  As I find things that resonate with me, I write them down.  I'll share some of mine, but what I'd really like is to read yours.  Mine have a certain bent, but I'd like to see what inspires people from across the spectrum.

 

 

"In those days a boy on the classical side officially did almost nothing
but classics. I think this was wise; the greatest service we can do to
education today is to teach fewer subjects. No one has time to do more
than a very few things well before he is twenty, and when we force a
boy to be a mediocrity in a dozen subjects we destroy his standards,
perhaps for life."

C. S. Lewis *Surprised by Joy*

 

 

Here's a challenge: This year, refuse to lower your expectations. Instead, raise them. And then exceed them. Enough of the whining and complaining and self-indulgence. Teach, **** it. Lead. Coach. Motivate. Inspire. Give your students the best that you have to offer every. single. day. Remember: The goal is a lifetime of excellence, not a day or two here and there. A lifetime. Begin, then, with raised expectations -- of yourself and of your students.

 

- Mental Mulivitamin

 

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

- Aristotle

 

Do not cultivate mediocrity. It will grow all around you, but you do not have to cultivate it in your little corner of the world where you live with your family.

 

- Ester Maria

 

Ad Majorem Dei Gloria

 

Wisdom is the principal thing: therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

- Proverbs 4:7

 

This book is a dinosaur.

Once upon a time in Middle-Earth, two things were different: (1) most students learned "the old logic," and (2) they could think, read, write, organize, and argue much better than they can today. If you belive these two things are not connected, you probably believe storks bring babies.

- Peter Kreeft, Socratic Logic

 

[Chrysalis Academy]

I have a bunch of these in a notebook, too, but the one my girls hear most consistently is:

 

What is written without effort is read without pleasure - Samuel Johnson

[8filltheheart]

It sounds like what is often referred to as a commonplace book. I do not keep one, but a favorite quote is from the LOTR movie:

“Frodo: I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.

 

Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.â€

[LivingHope]

The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavourable. Favourable conditions never come.

---C.S. Lewis from "Learning in Wartime"

 

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment "as to the Lord." It is only our daily bread that we are encourage to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

---C.S. Lewis from "Learning in Wartime"

 

 

And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you ---1 Thessalonians 4:11

 

Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ---Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Heidi]

Thought breeds thought; children familiar with great thoughts take as naturally to thinking for themselves as the well-nourished body takes to growing; and we must bear in mind that growth, physical, intellectual, moral, spiritual, is the sole end of education.
-Charlotte Mason

 

"We must work at our responsibility as parents as if everything in life counted on it, because in fact everything in life does count on it."

--Pres. Gordon B. Hinckley

 

"Mothers who know do less. They permit less of what will not bear good fruit eternally. They allow less media in their homes, less distraction, less activity that draws their children away from their home. Mothers who know are willing to live on less and consume less of the world’s goods in order to spend more time with their children—more time eating together, more time working together, more time reading together, more time talking, laughing, singing, and exemplifying. These mothers choose carefully and do not try to choose it all. Their goal is to prepare a rising generation of children who will take the gospel of Jesus Christ into the entire world. Their goal is to prepare future fathers and mothers who will be builders of the Lord’s kingdom for the next 50 years. That is influence; that is power." -Julie B. Beck

 

"If there is anything virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things"

 

[8filltheheart]

Never, in peace or war, commit your virtue or your happiness to the future. Happy work is best done by the man who takes his long-term plans somewhat lightly and works from moment to moment "as to the Lord." It is only our daily bread that we are encourage to ask for. The present is the only time in which any duty can be done or any grace received.

---C.S. Lewis from "Learning in Wartime"

I love this one.