There are five tests of the evidence of education — correctness and precision in the use of the mother tongue; refined and gentle manners, the result of fixed habits of thought and action; sound standards of appreciation of beauty and of worth, and a character based on those standards; power and habit of reflection; efficiency or the power to do.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Education
Perhaps we should comprehend these things better were it not for the persistence of the superstition that human beings habitually think. There is no more persistent superstition than this.
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Topics: Thought
Many peoples’ tombstones should read ‘Died at 30, buried at 60.’
—Nicholas Murray Butler
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Charles Sanders Peirce American Philosopher
John Dewey American Philosopher
Mortimer J. Adler American Philosopher, Educator
Wilhelm von Humboldt German Statesman, Scholar
Theodore Roosevelt American Head of State
Geoffrey Chaucer English Poet
Jiddu Krishnamurti Indian Philosopher
Plato Ancient Greek Philosopher
Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
Kahlil Gibran Lebanese-born American Philosopher