Random Quote
I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
---- Albert Einstein
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
---- Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
The least of learning is done in the classrooms
---- Thomas Merton
Don't knock the weather. If it didn't change once in a while, nine out of ten people couldn't start a conversation.
---- Kin Hubbard
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later.
---- Mitch Hedberg
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
---- Isaac Newton
The voodoo priest and all his powders were as nothing compared to espresso, cappuccino, and mocha, which are stronger than all the religions of the world combined, and perhaps stronger than the human soul itself.
---- Mark Helprin, Memoir from Antproof Case, 1995
Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.
---- Abigail Adams (1744 - 1818)
Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
---- Lily Tomlin
It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal beyond it.
---- Arnold Toynbee
I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.
---- Thomas A. Edison
America believes in education: the average professor earns more money in a year than a professional athlete earns in a whole week.
---- Evan Esar
Arguments over grammar and style are often as fierce as those over IBM versus Mac, and as fruitless as Coke versus Pepsi and boxers versus briefs.
---- Jack Lynch
Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.
---- Arnold Lobel
it's probably not a good idea to underestimate my ability to make an ass out of myself—just when I seem to have it under control, I'll turn around and surprise you.
---- Tenser said the Tensor
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
---- Robert Frost
I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.
---- Terry Pratchett
It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.
---- Franklin D. Roosevelt
Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted.
---- Fred Allen
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them.
---- Isaac Asimov
I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn't learn something from him.
---- Galileo Galilei
Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.
---- Leonardo DaVinci (1452-1519)
As an adolescent I aspired to lasting fame, I craved factual certainty, and I thirsted for a meaningful vision of human life - so I became a scientist. This is like becoming an archbishop so you can meet girls.
---- M. Cartmill
The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink.
---- George Orwell
Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths theater.
---- Gail Godwin
Contributors Wanted
I’m looking for regular, or non-regular contributors to this blog. Basically if you have something to say about language teaching, linguistics or language in general even only vaguely related you’re welcome to contribute. If you’d like to be a regular contributer, say 1-2 times a month or more then I’ll set you up with direct access to publishing without moderation.
If you just want to contribute a one time peice or be a little less regular feel free to use the guest entry form (you will need to be logged in first), which will send your submission to a moderation queue. 99.99% of the time, I’ll approve the entry as soon as I see it. The only reason I won’t approve it is if it’s spam or obviously a product placement in the form of a blog entry.
Contribute away.





David V. wrote 15 words on Wednesday Apr 1, 2009 at 11:07 PM
I find it hard enough contributing to my own blog but I’ll try and oblige.