Education is the manifestation of perfection already in man. (IV. 358)

What is education? Is it book-learning? No. Is it diverse knowledge? Not even that. The training by which the current and expression of will are brought under control and become fruitful is called education. (IV.490)

To me the very essence of education is concentration of mind, not the collecting of facts. If I had to do my education over again, and had any voice in the matter, I would not study facts at all. I would develop the power of concentration and detachment, and then with a perfect instrument I could collect facts at will. (CW.VI.38-39)

Education is not the amount of information that is put into your brain and runs riot there, undigested, all your life. We must have life-building, man-making, character-making assimilation of ideas. If you have assimilated five ideas and made them your life and character, you have more education than any man who has got by heart a whole library. (C.W. III.302)

We want that education by which character is formed, strength of mind is increased, the intellect is expanded, and by which one can stand on one’s own feet. (C.W.V.342)

My idea of education is personal contact with the teacher – gurugriha-vasa. Without the personal life of a teacher there would be no education. (C.W.V.224)

My whole ambition in life is to set in motion a machinery which will bring noble ideas to the door of everybody, and let men and women settle their own fate. Let them know what our forefathers as well as other nations have thought on the most momentous questions of life. (C.W.V.29)

The only service to be done for our lower classes is to give the education, to develop their lost individuality…Give them ideas-that is the only help they require, and then the rest must follow as the effect. Ours is to put the chemicals together, the crystallization comes in the law of nature. ….Now if the mountain does not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must got to the mountain. If the poor boy cannot come to education, education must go to him. (C.W.IV.362-363)

What we want are Western Science coupled with Vedanta, Brahmacharya as the guiding motto, and also Shraddha and faith in one’s own self. (C.W.V.366)

Bring light to the poor; and bring more light to the rich, for they require it more than the poor. Bring light to ignorant, and more light to the educated, for the vanities of the education of our time are tremendous. (C.W.III.247)

No one was ever really taught by another; each of us has to teach himself. The external teacher offers only the suggestion which rouses the internal teacher to work to understand things. (CW.I.93)

There are certain conditions necessary in the taught, and also in the teacher. The conditions necessary in the taught are purity, a real thirst after knowledge, and perseverance. (CW. IV.24)

A nation is advanced in proportion as education and intelligence spread among the masses. The chief cause of India is ruin has been the monopolizing of the whole education and intelligence of the land… among a handful of men. If we are to rise again, we shall have to do it… by spreading education among the masses. (CW. IV.482)

Does higher education mean mere study of material sciences and turning out things of everyday use by machinery? The use of higher education is to find out how to solve the problems of life, and this is what is engaging the profound thought of the modern civilized world, but it was solved in our country thousands of years ago. (CW. V.368)