I chose 'No. 1 Ladies' Detective,' or I'll say it chose me, and it was an absolute blessing, for the experience of being in Africa for seven months and learning so many different things, from languages to foods to greetings. On so many levels, it was an incredible experience.
Before and after emancipation, the Negro, in self-defense, was propelled toward the white employer. The endowments of wealthy white men have developed great institutions of learning for the Negro, but the freedom of action on the part of these same universities has been curtailed in proportion as they are indebted to white philanthropies.
The act of learning to read added an entirely new circuit to our hominid brain's repertoire. The long developmental process of learning to read deeply changed the very structure of that circuit's connections, which rewired the brain, which transformed the nature of human thought.
Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces where learning can be both cultivated and encouraged.
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America - except whether we are proud to be Americans.
I sat staring, staring, staring - half lost, learning a new language or rather the same language in a different dialect. So still were the big woods where I sat, sound might not yet have been born.
Behavior is mutable. It changes from place to place. It's like accents, dialect - it varies from one area to another. But there are universal truths about what it means to be a human being. All the other stuff is like applique. Learning that was interesting to me and probably useful for becoming an actor.
Our education system is increasingly embracing a black-and-white way of thinking, in which 'learning' and 'play' are diametrically opposed. 'Learning' is the serious stuff that happens inside a classroom and can be measured via multiple choice questions and a No. 2 pencil. 'Play' is frivolous, fun, and worst of all, optional.
English people don't have very good diction. In France you have to pronounce very particularly and clearly, and learning French at an early age helped me enormously.
I love learning about different dialects and I own all sorts of regional and time-period slang dictionaries. I often browse through relevant ones while writing a story. I also read a lot of diaries and oral histories.
It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.
I've never been in any country for more than four years, and I'm learning different languages all the time. It gives you a different attitude.
I am just learning to notice the different colors of the stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment.
I love traveling and seeing new things, learning the histories of different cultures. But I've always wanted to go to the Galapagos to see the giant turtles.
My kids miss me when I'm away, but I don't mind living out of a suitcase. The U.K., U.S., France, Germany, Iraq... it's such a thrill meeting people of different cultures, learning about and from them. It's changed my perception about life, humanity and spirituality.
As I can testify, living in a foreign country takes you way out of your comfort zone. It's the little things, like ordering food in a different language, buying petrol or learning to drive on the other side of the road, but they all add up to making you a more rounded, educated person.
All the things you put off, like learning to play the piano or leaning a different language? You're like, what's the point? I'm not really gonna do that, am I?
I raised five children. They all have different personalities. All of them have different issues, different levels of success. That was a learning experience for me.
I miss the early days; I do. I was so lucky. I basically had it to myself, learning about these chimpanzees. Nobody knew anything about them. Discovering their different personalities, different life histories. I was lucky.
I love studying different religions. For me, learning and drawing from the different religious traditions is essential to being a good public servant. And the connections between our various religious traditions become our public ethic; they tie us together.
