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Who really said it

Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance

Attributed to Will Durant 1885–1981 · American historian & philosopher
Attributed In copyright

Consistently credited to Durant, and consistent with a real remark he made late in life — captured in Time in 1965 as “Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” But it is reproduced almost everywhere with no source, the exact Time article cited varies between references ↗, and it has never been tied to one of Durant’s own books — so we mark it attributed rather than verified.

Last verified 16 Jul 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Unconfirmed quote & credit

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance” Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. —Will Durant, quoted in Time magazine, 1965

Can you use it?

Still under copyright (rights held by The Estate of Will Durant; the wording as published by Time Inc.). A short, credited quote is generally fine for talks, teaching, and internal decks; for commercial, published, or large-scale reuse, get permission.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Will Durant — American historian and philosopher; co-author of The Story of Civilization. Theme: "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The source

Speaker
Will Durant
Earliest source
“Teachers: The Essence of the Centuries,” Time, 13 Aug 1965 (per Wikiquote)
Form
A reported remark quoted in the press — not traced to a Durant book

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing; education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance. We teach more by what we are than by what we teach. Fuller form

The famous one-liner is almost always clipped from this fuller reflection — the self-deprecating opening and the closing sentence are usually dropped.

Will Durant on Wikiquote (sourced quotes)

How we verified this

  • Wikiquote lists the line in its sourced Will Durant quotes ↗, citing Time magazine, “Teachers: The Essence of the Centuries,” 13 August 1965.
  • The full remark — “…we teach more by what we are than by what we teach” — survives on aggregators like Quotefancy ↗, but with no source of its own.
  • Other references instead cite a different 1965 Time piece, “Books: The Great Gadfly,” 8 October 1965 ↗ — the precise article is unsettled.
  • Quote-mill pages such as Goodreads ↗ reproduce only the bare one-liner with no citation at all.
In copyright

The earliest documented appearance of this wording is a Time magazine feature in 1965 — well after 1931 — so the specific phrasing is in copyright in the United States, held by Durant’s estate and, as published, by Time Inc. The Socratic idea is ancient and free; this crisp English formulation is not.

Fact-check

Real quote, phantom source

This one isn’t pinned on the wrong person — it really is Durant. The problem is that it travels as an orphan: no source, often re-worded, and stripped of the sentences that give it meaning.

Every quote-mill reprint sourceless

Goodreads, BrainyQuote, AZQuotes and their imitators all publish the bare line with no source, which is why it reads like a free-floating aphorism. The actual earliest record is a 1965 Time citation ↗ that almost none of them carry.

The clipped one-liner

The line is severed from its opening — “Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing” — and its close, “we teach more by what we are than by what we teach,” preserved on Quotefancy ↗.

‘the’ vs ‘a’ mis-wording

Countless posts render it “Education is the progressive discovery” rather than the “a” of the earliest citation — a small but telling sign of quote-mill copying.

It is Durant — a genuine late-life remark recorded in Time in 1965 ↗; the fault lies in sourceless, context-free circulation, not a mistaken author.

Context

Why it rings true for Durant

The thought is really Socratic — the wise person is the one who knows how little they know — and Durant, who spent a lifetime summarizing all of human learning, was well placed to feel its force. In its fuller form the remark is a piece of autobiography: an old scholar reporting that six decades of study left him more aware of his ignorance, not less.

That is also why the line is such a magnet for misquotation. It is humble, quotable, and flattering to attach to a famous polymath — so it spreads faster than its source, shedding context and citation along the way.

Sixty years ago I knew everything; now I know nothing.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Knowledge Humility Wisdom

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Will Durant — Wikiquoteen.wikiquote.org

Lists the quote in its sourced section, citing Time (1965) — the authoritative anchor.
Fuller quote — Quotefancyquotefancy.com

Preserves the complete remark, including the opening and closing sentences usually dropped.
Alternate Time citation — Quoteparkquotepark.com

Cites a different 1965 Time article, showing the primary source is unsettled.
Sourceless reprint — Goodreadsgoodreads.com

Typical quote-mill page: bare one-liner, no citation.
Time archive (article)time.com

The 1965 Time feature Wikiquote names as the source (paywalled/blocked to fetch).
Will Durant — Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org

Biography of the historian for background and life dates.

The author

About Will Durant

Will Durant

1885–1981 · American historian and philosopher; co-author of The Story of Civilization

Will Durant was an American historian, philosopher and popularizer of ideas, best known for the eleven-volume The Story of Civilization written with his wife Ariel Durant. The couple won the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction, and Durant received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977. A former seminarian and teacher, he made a career of distilling vast subjects into aphoristic prose — which is exactly why humble one-liners like this one attach so readily to his name.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source — Chicago

Will Durant, quoted in “Teachers: The Essence of the Centuries,” Time, August 13, 1965 (per Wikiquote’s sourced section). Earliest documented appearance; the exact Time article cited varies across references.

MLA (9th ed.)

Durant, Will. “Teachers: The Essence of the Centuries.” Time, 13 Aug. 1965.

APA (7th ed.)

Durant, W. (1965, August 13). Teachers: The essence of the centuries. Time.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance’?” Last verified 16 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/education-is-a-progressive-discovery-of-our-own-ignorance

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