Roger Ascham Quotations

In our fathers' time nothing was read but books of feigned chivalry, wherein a man by reading should be led to none other end, but only to manslaughter and bawdry.

Young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning.

To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do is style.

For [the] quick in wit and light in manners be either seldom troubled or very soon weary, in carrying a very heavy purse.

He hazardeth much who depends for his learning on experience. An unhappy master, he that is only made wise by many shipwrecks; a miserable merchant, that is neither rich nor wise till he has been bankrupt. By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.

It is good manners, not rank, wealth, or beauty, that constitute the real lay.

To be rash is to be bold without shame and without skill.

It is a pity that, commonly, more care is had--yea, and that among very wise men--to find out rather a cunning man for their horse than a cunning man for their children.

Marke all Mathematicall heades, which be onely and wholy bent to those sciences, how solitarie they be themselues, how vnfit to liue with others, & how vnapte to serue in the world.

Mark all Mathematical heads which be wholly and only bent on these sciences, how solitary they be themselves, how unfit to live with others, how unapt to serve the world.