Ascham Quotes

The least learned, for the most part, have been always most ready to write. ~ Roger Ascham

It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had
yea, and that among very wise men
to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children. ~ Roger Ascham

A man, groundly learned already, may take much profit himself in using by epitome to draw other men's works, for his own memory sake, into short room. ~ Roger Ascham

I snorted. 'For a great sultan who is lord and ruler of all that he surveys, his English is lamentably poor. He can't even spell England properly.'
Still holding the note, Mr Ascham looked up at me. 'Is that so? Tell me, Bess, do you speak his language? Any Arabic or Turkish-Arabic?'
'You know that I do not.'
'Then however lamentable his English may be, he still speaks your language while you cannot speak his. To me, this gives him a considerable advantage over you. Always pause before you criticise, and never unduly criticise one who has made an effort at something you yourself have not even attempted. ~ Matthew Reilly

To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do is style. ~ Roger Ascham

By experience", says Roger Ascham, "we find out a short way by a long wandering." Not seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience to us then? ~ Thomas Hardy

I remember when I was young, in the north, they went to the grammar school little children: they came from thence great lubbers: always learning, and little profiting: learning without book everything, understanding within the book little or nothing. ~ Roger Ascham

Young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning. ~ Roger Ascham

Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty. ~ Roger Ascham

Marke all Mathematicall heades, which be onely and wholy bent to those sciences, how solitarie they be themselues, how vnfit to liue with others, & how vnapte to serue in the world. ~ Roger Ascham

To be rash is to be bold without shame and without skill. ~ Roger Ascham

He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him. ~ Roger Ascham

Let the master praise him, and say, 'Here ye do well.' For, I assure you, there is no such whetstone to sharpen a good wit, and encourage a will to learning, as is praise. ~ Roger Ascham

It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience. ~ Roger Ascham

In mine opinion, love is fitter than fear, gentleness better than beating, to bring up a child rightly in learning. ~ Roger Ascham

Although, by todays standards, he set a vast amount of work, he believed as he told Mrs Ashley, that 'If you pour much drink into a goblet, the most part will dash out and run over'. In Ascham's view, it was the carrot, and not the stick, that worked. ~ Alison Weir

A man reacheth not to excellence with one language. ~ Roger Ascham

In so many ways, Ascham thought, she was beyond her years - but in the presence of her father she became a little girl again. So confident and assured in private, now she moved with the stilted awkwardness of every twelve-year-old girl. Ascham's heart went out to her. ~ Matthew Reilly

By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering. ~ Roger Ascham

It is good manners, not rank, wealth, or beauty, that constitute the real lay. ~ Roger Ascham