My favorite thing about reading books is their propensity to contain great quotes. Each new work makes a generous contribution to my collection of quotes.

In the closing chapters, of Charles Johnson’s The Way of the Writer he discusses the writer’s need for an inquisitive mind. “Most of the ideas expressed by writers today are not new.” Johnson said, “Far too many writers are simply unaware that an idea they believe is original was actually thought and expressed—and presented with eloquence and sophistication—more than two thousand years before they were born. Writing well is thinking well. That necessarily involves knowing—and caring about—the best thoughts of others.”

Scribbled beside these words is an exclamation point. It’s a quick note to myself marking the importance of a given passage or line. They’re penned and scratched in the margins of many of the books I’ve read. In this one, Johnson touches on something worth contemplating—education and learning.

“Everything,” Andre Gide said, “that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” Gide captures the same idea in a way that helps us see a path a forward. Everything has indeed been said, but that doesn’t mean we can’t say it again. Chronological snobbery doesn't do us any favors.

Some hold to the idea that the past has nothing to offer. That modern man is so enlightened that ideas of the past are of little value. This is a trap we would do well to avoid. Making a contribution to the world begins with understanding those who have done so before. Wrestle with their words, and do battle with their thoughts and arguments. But most of all care enough to put in the work.

You never truly learn anything you don’t care about. You might memorize a few facts to pass a test, but very little real learning takes place apart from zeal. An unmotivated student achieves little, but light a fire under him and he soars. Your education doesn’t end when you leave the formal setting of a classroom.

It should continue for the rest of your life. Stay curious about the world around you and try to increase your understanding of it. Since all education is self-education, you’ve got to find new and exciting ways to motivate yourself to do so. Ask questions, read good books and above all get out of the house and mix it up with real people.

"The function of education,” Julius Lester said, “is not to confirm us in who we are; it is to introduce us to all that we are not. Education should overwhelm us to such an extent that we will never again assume that our experience as individuals or as part of a collective can be equated with human experience. In other words, education should impress us with how vast creation is and how small we are in the midst of it; and in the acceptance of that is the beginning of wisdom."