College Professors Quotes

College professors used to be badly paid and worth it. Colleges used to be modest institutions; they should go back to being modest institutions. ~ P. J. O'Rourke

What a gulf between impression and expression! That's our ironic fate - to have Shakespearean feelings and (unless by some billion-to-one chance we happen to be Shakespeare) to talk about them like automobile salesmen or teen-agers or college professors. We practice alchemy in reverse - touch gold and it turns into lead; touch the pure lyrics of experience, and they turn into the verbal equivalents of tripe and hogwash. ~ Aldous Huxley

As I ate she began the first of what we later called "my lessons in living." She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations. ~ Maya Angelou

She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. ~ Maya Angelou

Academic education is the act of memorizing things read in books, and things told by college professors who got their education mostly by memorizing things read in books. ~ Elbert Hubbard

College professors have two bad traits. They are logical
and they are easily flattered. ~ Gertrude Stein

My father is a college professor and that's about the extent of my college experience. I'm sort of a professional student forever. I think just as human beings we always have a student who is alive in us and is waiting to pop up and make us feel like we are 16 years-old again. ~ Gabriel Mann

It was always embarrassing when professors assigned their own books. Even Madeleine, who found all the reading hard going, could tell that Zipperstein's contribution to the field was reformulative and second-tier. ~ Jeffrey Eugenides

Autism's an important part of who I am, but I'm a college professor and an animal scientist first. And I wouldn't want to change 'cause I like the logical way I think. ~ Temple Grandin

Palestinians are a hard-working and an incredible community. They have done remarkably well outside their country. I have never met a poor Palestinian in the United States; every Palestinian I know is a college professor or a doctor. ~ William J. Clinton

I believe in research. Each movie at Pixar involves research with college professors or taking trips to learn as much as we can about a particular subject matter. ~ John Lasseter

I'm afraid I talk a lot, too much, perhaps. I should have been a lawyer or a college professor or a windy politician, though I'm glad I am not any of these. ~ Tom Glazer

After the stock market crash, some New York editors suggested that hearings be held: what had really caused the Depression? They were held in Washington. In retrospect, they make the finest comic reading. The leading industrialists and bankers testified. They hadn't the foggiest notion what had gone bad. You read a transcript of that record today with amazement: that they could be so unaware. This was their business, yet they didn't understand the operation of the economy. The only good witnesses were the college professors, who enjoyed a bad reputation in those years. No professor was supposed to know anything practical about the economy. ~ Studs Terkel

You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself, and not interrogate it like a college professor. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I think if I hadn't been a writer, I'd have been a teacher like my dad. He was a college professor, and one of my greatest regrets is that he passed away before I was able to prove to him that I wasn't going to be stuck working at Rax Roast Beef for the rest of my life! ~ Meg Cabot

The lopsided attitudes of college professors pose a serious challenge to learning because students are so susceptible to becoming lopsided sheep. ~ Suzanne Fields

Accountability measures allow administrators to require the faculty to "teach to the test," rather than devise the curriculum according to its own judgment. In this way, college professors can be reduced to the same subordinate status to which elementary and secondary school teachers have already been relegated. ~ Benjamin Ginsberg

Of course he had a female following. Was there anything college girls found sexier than being told what to think? ~ Mira Jacob

We're bombarded with liberal propaganda 24/7, from the early morning shows, Hollywood movies, documentaries and sitcoms, all major newspapers, fashion magazines, the sports pages, public schools, college professors and administrators, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Unless liberals specifically seek out Ann Coulter books and columns, which I highly recommend, or tune into Fox News or conservative talk radio, they have no idea what conservatives are thinking. ~ Ann Coulter

We are dealing, then, with an absurdity that is not a quirk or an accident, but is fundamental to our character as people. The split between what we think and what we do is profound. It is not just possible, it is altogether to be expected, that our society would produce conservationists who invest in strip-mining companies, just as it must inevitably produce asthmatic executives whose industries pollute the air and vice-presidents of pesticide corporations whose children are dying of cancer. And these people will tell you that this is the way the "real world" works. The will pride themselves on their sacrifices for "our standard of living." They will call themselves "practical men" and "hardheaded realists." And they will have their justifications in abundance from intellectuals, college professors, clergymen, politicians. The viciousness of a mentality that can look complacently upon disease as "part of the cost" would be obvious to any child. But this is the "realism" of millions of modern adults.

There is no use pretending that the contradiction between what we think or say and what we do is a limited phenomenon. There is no group of the extra-intelligent or extra-concerned or extra-virtuous that is exempt. I cannot think of any American whom I know or have heard of, who is not contributing in some way to destruction. The reason is simple: to live undestructively in an economy that is overwhelmingly destructive would require of any one of us, or of any small gr ~ Wendell Berry

As with any great literature, there are probably as many ways to read William Faulkner's writing as there are readers. There are hundreds of books devoted to interpretations of his novels, numerous biographies, and every year high school teachers and college professors guide their students through one or more of the novels. But after all is said and done, there are the books themselves, and the pleasure of reading them can be deep and lasting. The language Faulkner uses ranges from the poetically beautiful, nearly biblical to the coarse sounds of rough dialect. His characters linger in the mind, whether for their heroism or villainy, their stoicism or self-indulgence, their honesty or deceitfulness or self-deception, their wisdom or stupidity, their gentleness or cruelty. In short, like Shakespeare, William Faulkner understood what it means to be human. ~ William Faulkner

It always takes a man that never made much at any thing to tell you how to run your business, though. Like these college professors without a whole pair of socks to his name, telling you how to make a million in ten years, and a woman that couldn't even get a husband can always tell you how to raise a family. ~ William Faulkner

The truth is, everyone likes to look down on someone. If your favorites are all avant-garde writers who throw in Sanskrit and German, you can look down on everyone. If your favorites are all Oprah Book Club books, you can at least look down on mystery readers. Mystery readers have sci-fi readers. Sci-fi can look down on fantasy. And yes, fantasy readers have their own snobbishness. I'll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction. Shakespeare wrote popular fiction - until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was real artist. Edgar Allan Poe tied himself in knots because no one realized he was a genius. The core of the problem is how we want to define "literature". The Latin root simply means "letters". Those letters are either delivered - they connect with an audience - or they don't. For some, that audience is a few thousand college professors and some critics. For others, its twenty million women desperate for romance in their lives. Those connections happen because the books successfully communicate something real about the human experience. Sure, there are trashy books that do really well, but that's because there are trashy facets of humanity. What people value in their books - and thus what they count as literature - really tells you more about them than it does about the book. ~ Brent Weeks

My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions. ~ Maya Lin

Although the view that, once discovered, ideas can be imitated for free by anybody is pervasive, it is far from the truth. While it may occasionally be the case that an idea is acquired at no cost - ideas are generally difficult to communicate, and the resources for doing so are limited. It is rather ironic that a group of economists, who are also college professors and earn a substantial living teaching old ideas because their transmission is neither simple nor cheap, would argue otherwise in their scientific work. Most of the times imitation requires effort and, what is more important, imitation requires purchasing either some products or some teaching services from the original innovator, meaning that most spillovers are priced. ~ Michele Boldrin

I trust and believe that this College, this seed that we have sown, will grow to shelter and nurture generations who may add most notably to the strength and happiness of our people, and to the knowledge and peaceful progress of the world. 'The mighty oak from an acorn towers; A tiny seed can fill a field with flowers.' ~ Winston Churchill

Ever since I was in Amherst College I have remembered how Garman told his class in philosophy that if they would go along with events and have the courage and industry to hold to the main stream, without being washed ashore by the immaterial cross currents, they would someday be men of power. He meant that we should try to guide ourselves by general principles and not get lost in particulars. That may sound like mysticism, but it is only the mysticism that envelopes every great truth. One of the greatest mysteries in the world is the success that lies in conscientious work. ~ Calvin Coolidge

I studied French in high school and German in college and I once took a 24-hour Italian crash course. English has by far the most words in it of any other language. Our money might not be worth anything anymore, but the language is. ~ Roy Blount, Jr.

As a freshman in college, I was having a lot of trouble adjusting. I took a meditation class to handle anxiety. It really helped. Then as a grad student at Harvard, I was awarded a pre-doctoral traveling fellowship to India, where my focus was on the ancient systems of psychology and meditation practices of Asia. ~ Daniel Goleman

Inside McClintic Sphere was swinging his ass off. His skin was hard, as if it were part of the skull: every vein and whisker on that head stood out sharp and clear under the green baby spot: you could see the twin lines running down from either side of his lower lip, etched in by the force of his embouchure, looking like extensions of his mustache.
He blew a hand-carved ivory alto saxophone with a 4 ½ reed and the sound was like nothing any of them had heard before. The usual divisions prevailed: collegians did not dig, and left after an average of 1 ½ sets. Personnel from other groups, either with a night off or taking a long break from somewhere crosstown or uptown, listened hard, trying to dig. 'I am still thinking,' they would say if you asked. People at the bar all looked as if they did dig in the sense of understand, approve of, empathize with: but this was probably only because people who prefer to stand at the bar have, universally, an inscrutable look…
…The group on the stand had no piano: it was bass, drums, McClintic and a boy he had found in the Ozarks who blew a natural horn in F. The drummer was a group man who avoided pyrotechnics, which may have irritated the college crowd. The bass was small and evil-looking and his eyes were yellow with pinpoints in the center. He talked to his instrument. It was taller than he was and didn't seem to be listening.
Horn and alto together favored sixths and minor fourths and when this happened it was l ~ Thomas Pynchon

You know she needs you. Think for a minute instead of playing the wounded ego card.' - Derek ~ Stephanie Witter

Contrary to the Post's reporting, a significant number of stevedores held college degrees. ~ Rawn James Jr.

I didn't want to go to college or work in an office or have a nine-to-five job. I knew that quite clearly before I left school. ~ Aidan Gillen

I'm not a good writer, and I don't care. Unfortunately, after I left college, I didn't have time much for literature. I wish I did. Most of the time I read documents, and that's not going to help your writing. But I'm a very logical writer, and you can't get out of me. Once I've nailed you, you're finished. ~ Norman Finkelstein

How good a predictor of job productivity is a cognitive test score compared to a job interview? Reference checks? College transcript? The answer, probably surprising to many, is that the test score is a better predictor of job performance than any other single measure. This is the conclusion to be drawn from a meta-analysis on the different predictors of job performance, as shown in the table below. ~ Richard J. Herrnstein

The Dodgers. My favorite hockey team is the Kings. I like the Clippers in basketball. And I like USC college. Football, the Giants. ~ Alyssa Milano

I was more than anything a radical. I was more sympathetic to Malcolm X than Martin Luther King because Malcolm X was more of a radical who was willing to confront discrimination in ways that I thought it should be confronted, including perhaps the use of violence. But I really just wanted to be left alone. I thought some laws, like minimum-wage laws, helped poor people and poor black people and protected workers from exploitation. I thought they were a good thing until I was pressed by professors to look at the evidence. ~ Walter E. Williams

I'm a guy who has always been a late bloomer on every level. I've always wanted to get into the league as a kid. Who would have thought during my senior year at college that I would be where I am now? It's been a lot of hard work and never stopping. ~ Kevin Martin

It's more common than not that bipolar illness will start in the teens. One of the reasons I spend a lot of time on college campuses is exactly that reason. It's terribly important to talk to students about knowing these things in advance. ~ Kay Redfield Jamison

I made my first white women friends in college; they loved me and were loyal to our friendship, but I understood, as they did, that they were white women and that whiteness mattered. ~ Alice Walker

Another big difference about not being in college: In college, you're on the team, you're competing for the NCAA - luckily I had a full scholarship and I was taken care of - then all of a sudden you're a pro and you've got to take care of yourself. I'm gonna keep doing the same thing, keep training, and hopefully everything works out. ~ Jonathan Horton

For many citizens, libraries are the one place where the information they need to be engaged in civic life is truly available for free, requiring nothing more than the time to walk into a branch. The reading room of a public library is the place where a daily newspaper, a weekly newsmagazine, and a documentary film are all available for free. In many communities, the library's public lecture room is the only place to hear candidates for office comparing points of view or visiting professors explaining their work on climate change, immigration or job creation. That same room is often the only place where a child from a family without a lot of money can go to see a dramatic reading or a production of a Shakespeare play. (Another of these simple realities in most communities is that a big part of public librarians job is to figure out how to host the community's homeless in a safe and fair manner.) Democracies can work only if all citizens have access to information and culture that can help them make good choices, whether at the voting booth or in other aspects of public life. ~ John Palfrey

One of the greatest inventions of the 20th century -- indeed, one of the landmark inventions in the history of the human race -- was the work of a couple of young men who had never gone to college and who were just bicycle mechanics in Dayton, Ohio.
That part of the United States is often referred to as 'flyover country' because it is part of America that the east coast and west coast elites fly over on their way to what they consider more important places. But they are able to fly over it only because of those mechanics in Dayton. ~ Thomas Sowell

Heeding Clausewitz's warning that military plans which leave no room for the unexpected can lead to disaster, the Germans with infinite care had attempted to provide for every contingency. Their staff officers, trained at maneuvers and at war-college desks to supply the correct solution for any given set of circumstances, were expected to cope with the unexpected. Against that elusive, that mocking and perilous quantity, every precaution had been taken except one - flexibility. While ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

Where do vanished objects go?"
"Into nonbeing, which is to say, everything," replied Professor McGonagall.
"Nicely phrased," replied the eagle door knocker, and the door swung open. ~ J.K. Rowling

Jazz is the big brother of the blues. If a guy's playing blues like we play, he's in high school. When he starts playing jazz it's like going on to college, to a school of higher learning. ~ B.B. King

The American College of Sports Medicine found that the productivity of people after exercise was an average of 65 percent higher than those who did not exercise. If I have something that's really bothering me, so much that it almost hurts my head to try to sort it out, I always find the solution in a puddle of sweat! Intense exercise is like taking a magic pill that gives you the ability to solve problems like a superhero. ~ Chalene Johnson

Take a limitation and turn it into an opportunity. Take an opportunity and turn it into an adventure by dreaming BIG! ~ Jo Franz

You could do anything in your room at college. You could smoke pot, live in a coed dorm, have a girl. But you couldn't have a ... hot plate! ~ Jay Leno

Well, we were all in high school and we got together, and in college - we were in art college together. ~ Alice Cooper

It's never over. Not really. Not when you stay down there as long as I did, not when you've lived in the netherworld longer than you've lived in this material one, where things are very bright and large and make such strange noises. You never come back, not all the way. Always, there is an odd distance between you and the people you love and the people you meet, a barrier, thin as the glass of a mirror. You never come all the way out of the mirror; you stand, for the rest of your life, with one foot in this world and one in another, where everything is upside down and backward and sad.
It is the distance of marred memory, of a twisted and shape-shifting past. When people talk about their childhood, their adolescence, their college days, I laugh along and try not to think: that was when I was throwing up in my elementary school bathroom, that was when I was sleeping with strangers to show off the sharp tips of my bones, that was when I lost sight of my soul and died.
And it is the distance of the present, as well - the distance that lies between people in general because of the different lives we have lived. I don't know who I would be, now, if I had not lived the life I have, and so I cannot alter my need for distance - nor can I lessen the low and omnipresent pain that that distance creates. The entirety of my life is overshadowed by one singular and near-fatal obsession. ~ Marya Hornbacher

I never did anything else. In college I switched majors every two weeks, and acting was the only thing that held my interest. ~ James Caan

Yeah, I did some small parts in high school and the first year of college and then fairly soon thereafter I settled into the backstage scenery, and then at the University of Maryland I was doing posters for their productions. ~ Jim Henson

My advice to writers just starting out? Don't use semi-colons! They are transvestite hermaphrodites, representing exactly nothing. All they do is suggest you might have gone to college. ~ Kurt Vonnegut

It is a well known fact that Abraham Lincoln spent much of his spare time visiting wounded soldiers in Union Army hospitals. I've spent thirty years teaching history at Columbia and I don't think I've spent more than fifteen minutes in the freshman dorm. Are we the ones keeping Lincoln's memory alive? Or are we burying it? ~ Eric Foner

My colleagues and I have done a survey of 13,000 students on more than 17 campuses, and we found that while sex in college has always been a bit more casual, "hooking up" has pretty much replaced other traditional forms of dating. ~ Michael Kimmel

How do you get through any of your classes?" Cath had hours of assigned reading, almost every single night.
"Coping strategies."
"Such as?"
"I record my lectures and listen to them later. Professors usually cover most of what's on the test in class. And I find study groups."
"And you lean on Reagan --"
"Not just Reagan." He grinned. "I'm really good at quickly identifying the smartest girl in every class."
Cath frowned at him. "God, Levi, that's so exploitive."
"How is it exploitive? I don't make them wear miniskirts. I don't call them 'baby.' I just say, 'Hello, smart girl, would you like to talk to me about Great Expectations?'"
"They probably think you like them."
"I do like them."
"If it wasn't exploitive, you'd harass smart boys, too --"
"I do, in a pinch. Do you feel exploited, Cather?" He was still grinning at her over his coffee cup.
"No," she said, "I know that you don't like me."
"You don't know anything."
"So, this is old hat for you? Finding a girl to read a whole book to you?"
He shook his head. "No, this is a first."
"Well, now I feel exploited," she said, setting her drink down and reaching for the book.
"Thank you," he said.
"Chapter seven --"
"I'm serious." Levi pulled the book down and looked at her. "Thank you."
Cath held his eyes for a few seconds. Then she nodded and pulled back the book. ~ Rainbow Rowell