There is nothing so costly as ignorance.
Interpretation
Ignorance can lead to significant costs and consequences in life.
Horace Mann highlights the idea that ignorance, or lack of knowledge, is not just a personal disadvantage but also a costly one. It suggests that the absence of understanding can lead to poor decisions and missed opportunities, ultimately resulting in greater expenses—whether in terms of money, time, or lost potential. By emphasizing that ignorance is 'costly,' Mann advocates for the importance of education and awareness in personal and societal progress.
In practice
During a speech on the importance of education, I could say, 'As Horace Mann wisely stated, there is nothing so costly as ignorance.'
Under the Providence of God, our means of education are the grand machinery by which the 'raw material' of human nature can be worked up into inventors and discoverers, into skilled artisans and scientific farmers, into scholars and jurists, into the founders of benevolent institutions, and the great expounders of ethical and theological science.
Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
There may be frugality which is not economy. A community, that withholds the means of education from its children, withholds the bread of life and starves their souls.
Let us labor for that larger comprehension of truth, and that more thorough repudiation of error, which shall make the history of mankind a series of ascending developments.
Great knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been well instructed, but still greater knowledge is requisite to instruct those who have been neglected.
Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.
There is always a place I can take someone's curiosity and land where they end up enlightened when we're done. That's my challenge as an educator. No one is dumb who is curious. The people who don't ask questions remain clueless throughout their lives.
There is no substitute for knowledge.
As Americans, we rightfully place tremendous value on having a free and independent press. Our role as journalists is to give voice to the voiceless, and hold our leaders and institutions accountable. But the circle is only completed when that information is consumed by a free-thinking and engaged audience.
Hillary Clinton understands that we have to invest in education and jobs for our young people, not more jails or incarceration.
I kept always two books in my pocket, one to read, one to write in.
I emphasize teachers because they are largely left out of the debate. None of the bombastic reports that come from Washington and think tanks telling us what needs to be 'fixed' - I hate such a mechanistic word, as if our schools were automobile engines - ever asks the opinions of teachers.
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