John Keating Quotes

College will probably destroy your love for poetry. Hours of boring analysis, dissection, and criticism will see to that. College will also expose you to all manner of literature—much of it transcendent works of magic that you must devour; some of it utter dreck that you must avoid like the plague.

You must strive to find your own voice, boys, and the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all.

When you read, don’t just consider what the author thinks, consider what you think.

If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen, you hear it?

I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.

So avoid using the word ‘very’ because it’s lazy. A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. Don’t use very sad, use morose. Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women - and, in that endeavor, laziness will not do. It also won’t do in your essays.

Savor language and words because no matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas have the power to change the world.

This is a battle, boys. War! You are souls at a critical juncture. Either you will succumb to the will of academic hoi polloi, and the fruit will die on the vine— or you will triumph as individuals.

The human race is filled with passion!

No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.

We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race.

Carpe Diem, seize the day boys, make your lives extraordinary.

Mr. Anderson thinks that everything inside of him is worthless and embarrassing. Isn’t that right, Todd? And that’s your worse fear.

But only in their dreams can men be truly free.

I always thought education was learning to think for yourself.

How do we, like Walt, permit our own true natures to speak? How do we strip ourselves of prejudices, habits, influences? The answer, my dear lads, is that we must constantly endeavor to find a new point of view.

There’s a time for daring and there’s a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.