Charles William Eliot Quotes

The fruit of liberal education is not learning, but the capacity and desire to learn, not knowledge, but power.

When blocked or defeated in an enterprise I had much at heart, I always turned immediately to another field of work where progress looked possible, biding my time for a chance to resume the obstructed road.

I recognize but one mental acquisition as a necessary part of the education of a lady or gentlemen, namely, an accurate and refined use of the mother tongue.

In some small field each child should attain, within the limited range of its experience and observation, the power to draw a justly limited inference from observed facts.

Do not expect the world to look bright, if you habitually wear gray-brown glasses.

The efficient man is the man who thinks for himself.

The best way to secure future happiness is to be as happy as is rightfully possible to-day.

Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only, you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.

The Library is the heart of the University.

Nobody has any right to find life uninteresting or unrewarding who sees within the sphere of his own activity a wrong he can help to remedy, or within himself an evil he can hope to overcome.

The strikebreaker is the hero of American industry.

You know that it is only through work that you can achieve anything, either in college or in the world.

There is no mystery about successful business ... Exclusive attention to the person who is speaking to you.

In the modern world the intelligence of public opinion is the one indispensable condition for social progress.

Books are the quietest and most constant of friends; they are the most accessible and wisest of counselors, and the most patient of teachers.