Rote Quotes

I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding; they learn by some other way - by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile! (Richard Feynman)
Nature, they say, doth dote, And cannot make a man Save on some worn-out plan, Repeating us by rote. View quote
James Russell Lowell
For language to be generative, children must not be learning by rote. Music is also generative. For every musical phrase I hear, I can always add a note... to generate a new musical phrase. View quote
Daniel Levitin
Opinions are not to be learned by rote, like the letters of an alphabet, or the words of a dictionary. They are conclusions to be formed, and formed by each individual in the sacred and free citadel of the mind, and there enshrined beyond the arm of law to reach, or force to shake; ay! and beyond the right of impertinent curiosity to violate, or presumptuous arrogance to threaten. View quote
Frances Wright
I knew all of the childhood prayers I uttered on my knees at the side of my bed. Many years of Sunday-school attendance had etched certain Psalms and rote prayers into the fibers of my brain. However, somewhere deep inside of me, I had the secret belief that I did not know how to pray, and that frightened me. View quote
Iyanla Vanzant
N.B. This is rote sarcastikul. View quote
Artemus Ward
The status quo was rote memorization and recitation in classrooms thronged with passive children who were sternly disciplined when they expressed individual needs. View quote
David Guterson
Dr. Johnson was a lazy learned man who liked to think and talk better than to read or write; who, however, wrote much and well, but too often by rote. View quote
William Hazlitt
The United States ... celebrates rote vocational training and the singular, amoral skill of making money. It churns out stunted human products, lacking the capacity and vocabulary to challenge the assumptions and structures of the corporate state. It funnels them into a caste system of drones and systems managers. It transforms a democratic state into a feudal system of corporate masters and serfs. View quote
Chris Hedges
We learn words by rote, but not their meaning; that must be paid for with our life-blood, and printed in the subtle fibres of our nerves. View quote
George Eliot
I woke up an hour before I was supposed to, and started going over the mental checklist: where do I go from here, what do I do? I don't remember eating anything at all, just going through the physical, getting into the suit. We practiced that so much, it was all rote. (Alan Shepard)
History as she is harped. Rite words in rote order. (pp. 108-109) View quote
Marshall McLuhan
The Art Perspective is necessary to all Arts... but it is more particularly necessary to the Art Painting... The Greatest Masters have been the most guilty... The great Occasion of this Fault, is certainly the wrong Method that generally is used in the Education of Persons to this Art: For the Young People are generally put immediately to Drawing, and when they have acquired a Facility in that, they are put to Colouring. And these things they learn by rote, and by Practice only; but are not at all instructed in any Rules of Art. By which means when they come to make any Designs of their own, tho' they... don t know how to govern their Inventions with Judgment, and become guilty of so many gross Mistakes, which prevent themselves, as well as others, from finding that Satisfaction, they otherwise would do in their Performances. View quote
Brook Taylor
Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not. View quote
Laurence Sterne
Many think of memory as rote learning, a linear stuffing of the brain with facts, where understanding is irrelevant. When you teach it properly, with imagination and association, understanding becomes a part of it. View quote
Tony Buzan
A set of phrases learnt by rote; A passion for a scarlet coat; When at a play to laugh, or cry, Yet cannot tell the reason why: Never to hold her tongue a minute; While all she prates has nothing in it. View quote
Jonathan Swift
To cultivate the memory we should confide to it only what we understand and love: the rest is a useless burden; for simply to know by rote is not to know at all. View quote
John Lancaster Spalding
Americans have been good at improvising for a long time, but in the last few decades, we have gotten very sloppy about the rote memorization of facts. That's a discipline issue. You need the rote skill in order to have something to improvise off of, otherwise you are simply playing air guitar. View quote
John Medina
Multiplication of whole Numbers ...Note, that for the more easie solution of this proposition, it were necessary to have in memory the multiplication of the 9 simple Characters among themselves, learning them by rote out of the Table here placed... View quote
Simon Stevin
When you audition for shows in Hollywood, you go in, you do your scene, maybe you get an adjustment. It's sort of easy, and a lot of times it just feels sort of rote and simple. Whereas when you go to New York and you audition for plays, you walk out sweaty and intimidated and nervous and doubting yourself as an actor. View quote
Ben Feldman
Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes. Yet what is wisdom without memory? (Martin Farquhar Tupper)
The custom of speaking to God Almighty as freely as with a slave - caring nothing whether the words are suitable or not, but simply saying the first thing that comes to mind from being learnt by rote by frequent repetition - cannot be called prayer: God grant that no Christian may address Him in this manner. View quote
Teresa of Ávila
I think there's so much negative influence on children in school settings. It becomes learning by rote to pass a test. It's not contextualized. View quote
Esperanza Spalding
I struggle to learn by rote. I've had meltdowns on set. Which is embarrassing and shameful. View quote
Benedict Cumberbatch
This great man, Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, a Padmashri and Padma Bhushan, would clean the gutter outside his house. He used to beat me. One slap from my dad and I had left the house. And my guru slapped me a couple of times because I was arrogant. I would be so angry I would pack my bags. But I knew I was there because I wanted to be there not because he wanted me to be there. And when I touched his feet it was not by rote. When I touched his feet he and I both cried because he had waited long enough for me to come to that. View quote
Protima Bedi