I just stumbled across this quote and I liked it so much I thought I’d share it –
We are to regard the mind not as a piece of iron to be laid upon the anvil and hammered into any shape, nor as a block of marble in which we are to find the statute by removing the rubbish, nor as a receptacle into which knowledge may be poured; but as a flame that is to be fed, as an active being that must be strengthened to think and feel–to dare, to do, and to suffer.
– Mark Hopkins, Induction address as president of Williams College, 1836.
The flame metaphor really does work for me. I feel the same way about sharing ideas and insights – the things I put in this blog. When my flame adds to your flame there’s twice the energy, twice the heat and twice the light.
Heroes Not Zombies 
Great quote Dr. Bob… I love that.
I like it, too, though I hesitate a little at the implications of it. When one feeds a fire, the fodder is consumed and destroyed. I don’t know – maybe I’m taking the metaphor too far (or maybe I’ve spent too much time studying Nazis and their penchant for book burning – it was the first image that came to mind).
I can’t quite come up with a better one, though. I’m thinking around a library metaphor – as I add books to my collection, I get not only a repository that I can continually go back to, but that I can also loan out to others – after they share it, we have a common story/experience that we can use to understand one another and our world a little bit better.
It’s not as tidy as the fire idea, but I think I like it a little better.
(p.s. – I DO love the beacon image from LoTR, though, and I appreciate where you went with that…)
It is a beautiful quote. – Mrs. Chili – if you think about a candle? The flame only devours the wax – that is what is needed to survive – of you bring two candles together… they burn brighter together…
Hi Bob:
Thanks for sharing the quote on education I posted on our blog.
Unfortunately, I just noticed that I had a typo in the quote when I typed it. The word “statute” should be “statue.”
Since I work with statutes a lot and haven’t created a statue since played with my kids play-doh I didn’t catch my mistake! 🙂
Sorry about that!
Four years later I must tell you that that quote is originally by Socrates, who said “Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel”.