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Quotes

Like metaphors, pithy quotations can deepen meanings with a few, well chosen words. This collection of quotations by authors, artists, philosophers, psychologists, businesspeople, athletes, scientists, statespeople, and historians is intended to accompany and illuminate the 16 Habits of Mind described by Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick in their series of four books, Habits of Mind: A Developmental Series, (2000) and their more recent Leading and Learning with Habits of Mind (2008) both published by the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

The purpose of this collection is to support anyone working with the Habits of Mind with an additional resource. Selected quotations may be:

  • made into banners or posters to mount in conspicuous places as reminders,
  • studied to find what hidden meanings and relationships might be disclosed,
  • highlighted in monthly calendars focusing on one of the Habits of Mind,
  • chosen as a topic to stimulate further writing and reflection,
  • the focus of "words to live by" for an extended period of time,
  • related to a topic of study in one or more content areas,
  • used in other ways that you will create.

The quotations are then categorized around each of the 16 Habits of Mind.  Sometimes it has been difficult to classify them into only one category, some quotes appear in more than one location where appropriate. Since the Habits of Mind are as good for adults as they are for the young, the final section relates to modeling of the Habits of Mind.

This is only the beginning. You will want to find other ways to use them as well as add to the collection.
I pick my favorite quotations and store them in my mind as ready armor, offensive or defensive, amid the struggle of this turbulent existence.
Robert Burns, Scottish Poet
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.
William Feather
A quotation in a speech, article or book is like a rifle in the hands of an infantryman. It speaks with authority.
Brendan Francis
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself.
Marlene Dietrich
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
Miguel de Cervantes
A short saying often contains much wisdom.
Sophocles
Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. Even a proverb is no proverb to you till your live has illustrated it.
John Keats
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Leo Rosten
The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.
Niels Bohr
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana
An aphorism is never exactly true. It is either a half-truth or a truth and a half.
Karl Kraus
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana, philosopher, poet