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It is not so important to be serious as it is to be serious about the important things. The monkey wears an expression of seriousness which would do credit to any college student, but the monkey is serious because he itches.

Robert M. Hutchins

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Robert M. Hutchins
Age: 78 †
Born: 1899
Born: January 17
Died: 1977
Died: May 17
Educator
Pedagogue
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Life
Credit
Students
Expression
Itches
College
Monkey
Serious
Wears
Important
Seriousness
Things
Monkeys
Would
Student

More quotes by Robert M. Hutchins

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When I feel like exercising I just lie down until the feeling goes away.
Robert M. Hutchins
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It has been said that we have not had the three R's in America, we had the six R's remedial readin', remedial 'ritin' and remedial 'rithmetic.
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We can put television in its proper light by supposing that Gutenberg's great invention had been directed at printing only comic books.
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America's experiment with government of the people, by the people, and for the people depends not only on constitutional structure and organization but also on the commitment, person to person, that we make to each other.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Education can be dangerous. It is very difficult to make it not dangerous. In fact, it is almost impossible.
Robert M. Hutchins
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We do not know what education can do for us, because we have never tried it.
Robert M. Hutchins
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It sometimes seems as though we were trying to combine the ideal of no schools at all with the democratic ideal of schools for everybody by having schools without education.
Robert M. Hutchins
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We call Japanese soldiers fanatics when they die rather than surrender, whereas American soldiers who do the same thing are called heroes.
Robert M. Hutchins
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When we listen to the radio, look at television and read the newspapers we wonder whether universal education has been the great boon that its supporters have always claimed it would be.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.
Robert M. Hutchins
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College football: I do not see the relationship of those highly industrialized affairs on Saturday afternoons to higher learning in America.
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Equality and justice, the two great distinguishing characteristics of democracy, follow inevitably from the conception of men, all men, as rational and spiritual beings.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Nature will not forgive those who fail to fulfill the law of their being. The law of human beings is wisdom and goodness, not unlimited acquisition.
Robert M. Hutchins
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The college graduate is presented with a sheepskin to cover his intellectual nakedness.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Most people spend their time on the 'urgent' rather than on the 'important.'
Robert M. Hutchins
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To solve a problem it is necessary to think. It is necessary to think even to decide what facts to collect.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Football, fraternities and fun have no place in the university. They were introduced only to entertain those who shouldn't be in the university.
Robert M. Hutchins
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Education is a kind of continuing dialogue, and a dialogue assumes different points of view.
Robert M. Hutchins
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...The task is overwhelming, and the chance is slight. We must take the chance or die.
Robert M. Hutchins
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More free time means more time to waste. The worker who used to have only a little time in which to get drunk and beat his wife now has time to get drunk, beat his wife - and watch TV.
Robert M. Hutchins