David Geffen

My mother taught me to love my work. I learned everything about business from her.

The opportunity for an entrepreneur to start a company from scratch today is abysmal.

Why not blame the libraries? They’re full of violent books.

There has always been a tremendous obsession with television and movie stars, and with the people involved with the business.

It’s very easy for me to thank everyone for the incredible contribution they’ve made to my life.

I comfortable with everything – say whatever you want.

Poorer students take out larger loans and will have to contribute more to the cost of higher education.

A man’s college and university degrees mean nothing to me until I see what he is able to do with them.

The educated Southerner has no use for an ‘R’, except at the beginning of a word.

Education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

All of life is a constant education.

An average English word is four letters and a half. By hard, honest labor I’ve dug all the large words out of my vocabulary and shaved it down till the average is three and a half… I never write metropolis for seven cents, because I can get the same money for city. I never write policeman, because I can get the same price for cop…. I never write valetudinarian at all, for not even hunger and wretchedness can humble me to the point where I will do a word like that for seven cents; I wouldn’t do it for fifteen.

Learning carries within itself certain dangers because out of necessity one has to learn from one’s enemies.

Research is what I’m doing when I don’t know what I’m doing.

The rising costs of higher education coupled with the stress of paying student loans are putting increasing pressure on students.

Every child must be encouraged to get as much education as he has the ability to take. We want this not only for his sake — but for the future of our nation’s sake. Nothing matters more to the future of our country: not our military preparedness — for armed might is worthless if we lack the brainpower to build world peace; not our productive economy — for we cannot sustain growth without trained manpower; not our democratic system of government – for freedom is fragile if citizens are ignorant.

What is life but education, anyway?

To educate the peasantry, three things are needed: schools, schools and schools.

Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. Our requirements for world leadership, our hopes for economic growth, and the demands of citizenship itself in an era such as this all require the maximum development of every young American’s capacity. The human mind is our fundamental resource.

To learn, you have to listen. To improve, you have to try.

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.