Leo Tolstoy

I wanted movement and not a calm course of existence. I wanted excitement and danger and the chance to sacrifice myself for my love.

And you know, there’s less charm in life when you think about death–but it’s more peaceful.

The only absolute knowledge attainable by man is that life is meaningless.

Rummaging in our souls, we often dig up something that ought to have lain there unnoticed.

Everything depends on upbringing.

It’s not given to people to judge what’s right or wrong. People have eternally been mistaken and will be mistaken, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.

No task before our nation is more important than expanding and improving the educational opportunities of all our people. The concept that every American deserves the opportunity to attain the highest level of education of which he is capable is not new to this Administration – it is a traditional ideal of democracy. But it is time that we moved toward the fulfillment of this ideal with more vigor and less delay. For education is both the foundation and the unifying force of our democratic way of life – it is the mainspring of our economic and social progress – it is the highest expression of achievement in our society, ennobling and enriching human life. In short, it is at the same time the most profitable investment society can make and the richest reward it can offer.

I don’t give a damn for a man that can only spell a word one way.

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

The biggest little thing for entrepreneurs is the lifelong commitment to education.

Education is what survives when what has been learnt has been forgotten.

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

In a global economy where the most valuable skill you can sell is your knowledge, a good education is no longer just a pathway to opportunity – it is a prerequisite.

I have been learning English on the road since I started when I was 15, so it is a slow process but making some progress. Now I think I am much more comfortable with my English. However, it is difficult, still, when I speak about something that is not tennis.

[On his donation of $100 million to UCLA in 2012 adding to the $200 million he donated in 2002] The cost of a world-class medical education should not deter our future innovators, doctors and scientists from the path they hope to pursue. We need the students at this world-class institution to be driven by determination and the desire to do their best work and not by the fear of crushing debt. I hope in doing this that others will be inspired to do the same.

That man is best educated who knows the greatest number of things that are so, and who can do the greatest number of things to help and heal the world.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

An educated person, I think, is one who not only knows a lot, but knows how to do a lot of things.

Men may be born free; they cannot be born wise; and it is the duty of the university to make the free wise.

All of life is a constant education.

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