William butler yeats quotes on education

William Butler Yeats? Plutarch? Socrates? Plato?

William butler yeats quotes on education and success

Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: There is a superb quotation about education that I have encountered many times. Here is a collection of examples with attributions that I have been accumulating.

None of the examples came with citations:

• Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel —Socrates
• Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. —William Butler Yeats
• Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.

  The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled

  —Plutarch

• The mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting. —Plutarch

What do you think? Who should properly be given credit, and what was the original statement? It is embarrassing to find that even educators who should be sensitized to the problems of improper or non-existent citations are sometimes careless.

But my criticism is muted because determining a proper ascription can be difficult, as your website illustrates.

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