Eccentrics at Work

That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.

— John Stuart Mill

Eccentricity is not, as dull people would have us believe, a form of madness. It is often a kind of innocent pride, and the man of genius and the aristocrat are frequently regarded as eccentrics because genius and aristocrat are entirely unafraid of and uninfluenced by the opinions and vagaries of the crowd.

— Dame Edith Sitwell

No one can be profoundly original who does not avoid eccentricity.

— André Maurois

Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained.

— John Stuart Mill

Those who are different change the world. Those who are ordinary keep it that way.

— Unknown wise person

We are obliged to regard many of our original minds as crazy at least until we have become as clever as they are.

— G. C. Lichtenberg

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

— Bertrand Russell

Education and Training

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

— Mark Twain

When a subject becomes totally obsolete we make it a required course.

— Peter Drucker

It don't make much difference what you study, so long as you don't like it.

— Finley Peter Dunne

To make headway, improve your head.

— B. C. Forbes

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts.

— John Wooden

The dog too old to learn new tricks always has been.

— Unknown wise person

Learn as if you were going to live forever. Live as if you were going to die tomorrow.

— Unknown wise person

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

— Theodore Roosevelt

An education obtained with money is worse than no education at all.

— Socrates

You may be a redneck if . . . you have spent more on your pickup truck than on your education.

— Jeff Foxworthy

Economics 101 won't get you off welfare, but at least you will know why you are there.

— Graffiti at a university

All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.

— Samuel Johnson

I was going to buy a copy of The Power of Positive Thinking, and then I thought: What the damn good would that do?

— Ronnie Shakes

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

— Benjamin Franklin

We all need an education in the obvious.

— Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.