QuoteProject
You have learnt something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something.
George Bernard Shaw
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Learning often feels like a loss at first, as it challenges our previous knowledge.

This quote by George Bernard Shaw highlights the paradox of learning: while gaining knowledge is invaluable, it often requires us to let go of old beliefs or understandings, which can feel uncomfortable or like a loss. This discomfort is a natural part of personal growth and development, suggesting that true education involves both the acquisition of new insights and the relinquishment of outdated concepts.

Themes

LearningGrowthKnowledgeExperienceEducation

In practice

Example use cases

This quote is perfect for a graduation speech emphasizing the challenges of learning.

More from George Bernard Shaw

What we want is to see the child in pursuit of knowledge, and not knowledge in pursuit of the child.
George Bernard ShawRead
Marriage is good enough for the lower classes: they have facilities for desertion that are denied to us.
George Bernard ShawRead
Forgive him, for he believes that the customs of his tribe are the laws of nature!
George Bernard ShawRead
Those who talk most about the blessings of marriage and the constancy of its vows are the very people who declare that if the chain were broken and the prisoners left free to choose, the whole social fabric would fly asunder. You cannot have the argument both ways. If the prisoner is happy, why lock him in? If he is not, why pretend that he is?
George Bernard ShawRead
Treat a friend as a person who may someday become your enemy; an enemy as a person who may someday become your friend.
George Bernard ShawRead
The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality.
George Bernard ShawRead

Similar quotes

What you want is practice, practice, practice. It doesn’t matter what we write (at least this is my view) at our age, so long as we write continually as well as we can. I feel that every time I write a page either of prose or of verse, with real effort, even if it’s thrown into the fire the next minute, I am so much further on.
C. S. LewisRead
Whatever may be the merits of a religious system, its effects upon the mass of mankind must depend in an important degree upon its teachers. All instruction and all truth, except simple mathematical truth, is modified by the medium through which it is conveyed.
Benjamin Robbins CurtisRead
...Writings can be stolen, or changed, or used for evil purposes. But isn't the risk worth taking? The more people who share knowledge, the greater safeguard for it. Isn't there more danger in ignorance than knowledge?
Lloyd AlexanderRead
I think you can be taught to write. You can't be taught to be a good writer. For that, you have to bring something to it, yourself, something that can't be given to you.
James SalterRead
Whenever you write, whatever you write, never make the mistake of assuming the audience is any less intelligent than you are.
Rod SerlingRead
Traditionally, psychology has been the study of two populations: university freshmen and white rats.
Paul BloomRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.