Bok Quotes & Sayings

I believe that a guarantee of public access to government information is indispensable in the long run for any democratic society ... if officials make public only what they want citizens to know, then publicity becomes a sham and accountability meaningless. — Sissela Bok

Education, and I regret to say this as an educator, but there's no indication that education has a direct effect on happiness. — Derek Bok

Once you start worrying about a national football championship, then you begin to worry about getting the quality of athlete, and the numbers needed, to win a national championship. And that worry leads to pressure to compromise academic standards to admit those athletes. — Derek Bok

Sitting too long in front of a screen proves both physically and psychologically debilitating, no matter how innocuous or even beneficial the programs may be. — Sissela Bok

Although professors regard improving critical thinking as the most important goal of college, tests reveal that seniors who began their studies with average critical thinking skills have progressed only from the 50th percentile of entering freshmen to about the 69th percentile. — Derek Bok

The most obvious purpose of college education is to help students acquire information and knowledge by acquainting them with facts, theories, generalizations, principles, and the like. This purpose scarcely requires justification. — Derek Bok

The fact must never be forgotten that no magazine publisher in the United States could give what it is giving to the reader each month if it were not for the revenue which the advertiser brings the magazine. — Edward Bok

Deceit and violence - these are the two forms of deliberate assault on human beings. — Sissela Bok

The University has a moral obligation to provide equal opportunities to women, minority persons and all other groups who work or seek to work at Harvard. — Derek Bok

While all deception requires secrecy, all secrecy is not meant to deceive. — Sissela Bok

Shrimp, 6 large Tuna, canned, packed in water, 5 ounces White fish (halibut, cod, tilapia), 6 ounces PRODUCE (Determine what smoothie flavors you intend to drink and add those fruits to your grocery list for the week) Bananas, 2 small Basil, 1 bunch Bell pepper, 2 red Blueberries, 1 pint Bok choy, 1 bunch Cantaloupe, 1 small Carrots, 1 bag of baby and 1 small bag of regular size Celery, 1 small bunch — Liz Vaccariello

I believe that Harvard can have, and must have, a strong affirmative action program that reflects our commitment to equal opportunity while fully respecting the academic standards of the University. — Derek Bok

Regardless of how often the appetite for entertainment violence becomes addictive, increased exposure does risk further desensitizing viewers. And the element of pleasure that they derive may lead them to regard violence as a more acceptable way of dealing with problems, and victimization as more tolerable so long as it befalls others, not themselves. — Sissela Bok

Combining the experience of a seasoned university president with the analysis of a respected legal scholar, Derek Bok explores what he concludes are 'signs of excessive commercialization in every part of the university.' His somber assessment of the current state of athletics, scientific research, and distance education, and his call for review and restraint, should engage the attention of every faculty senate in the country. He has given us a timely, candid, courageous, and important book. — Frank H. T. Rhodes

Night is irregular. What is not done in the daytime becomes possible at night: murder and sex and thought.
Simple men are driven to early beds by tomorrow's daytime demands and by fear of the dark, and never dream of the irregular world outside. And all the while, a viscount and a spaceport baggage boy might be passing the night rolling bok ball in the city park. That's more than unusual
that is irregular. — Alexei Panshin

Freshly minted Ph.Ds typically teach the way their favorite professors taught. — Derek Bok

Make the world a bit better or more beautiful because you have lived in it. — Edward Bok

If we are prepared to invest the necessary time and effort, affirmative action can contribute to Harvard's quality and not detract from it. — Derek Bok

Go litel bok, go, litel myn tragedye,
Ther God thi makere yet, er that he dye,
So sende myght to make in som comedye!
But litel book, no makyng thow n'envie,
But subgit be to alle poesye;
And kis the steppes where as thow seest pace
Virgile, Ovide, Omer, Lucan, and Stace. — Geoffrey Chaucer

For many years I have been a night watchman of the Milky Way galaxy. — Bart Bok

America may be the only society on earth to have experienced what has been called an 'epidemic of children killing children,' which is ravaging some of its communities today. — Sissela Bok

Three sorts of goods, Aristotle specified, contribute to happiness: goods of the soul, including moral and intellectual virtues and education; bodily goods, such as strength, good health, beauty, and sound senses; and external goods, such as wealth, friends, good birth, good children, good heredity, good reputation and the like. — Sissela Bok

I think the minority students that we admit to Harvard are every bit as meritorious as the white students that we admit. — Derek Bok

Bok knows everything about me, including my thing with auras. Truth is, though, he isn't much good as a bodyguard. Bok is a shade heavier than an eating disorder, has a cute button nose and long, silky, straight hair most girls would kill for. We've been friends since prep when he used to sit behind me in class and hit me with his ruler. I put up with it for weeks, and then one day when the teacher stepped out of the room I pushed him off his chair and watched as he fell flat on his skinny, pretty arse. — Marianne Delacourt

In Our Underachieving Colleges, [Derek] Bok acts as both diagnostician and healer, wielding social-science statistics and professional studies to trace the etiology of today's illnesses and to recommend palliative treatments for what he has discovered. — Donald Kagan

All the POWs worked hard for their captors, the North Koreans. We had been told that if we worked hard, we would be treated fairly. Instead, we were exploited. — Young-Bok Yoo

The making of money, the accumulation of material power, is not all there is to living ... and the man who misses this truth misses the greatest joy and satisfaction that can come into his life
service for others. — Edward Bok

For the first time in living memory, current generations of young people today are likely to be no better educated than their parents. — Derek Bok

The price of success: hard work, patience, and a few sacrifices. — Edward Bok

I won't say there aren't any Harvard graduates who have never asserted a superior attitude. But they have done so to our great embarrassment and in no way represent the Harvard I know. — Derek Bok

Despite the hours spent debating different models of general education, the choices faculties make rarely lead to any significant difference in the cognitive development of undergraduates. — Derek Bok

Are people the best judges of their own happiness, or outsiders? In defining happiness, should we think of entire lives or of shorter periods such as moments, days, or years? And to what extent are virtue and happiness linked? — Sissela Bok

He just rubs people up the wrong way in a short space of time and, after he'd gone, one of the South African coaches there said to me in a thick Bok accent 'You see, Richard, what we have to put up with?' — Richard Loe

Greater inequality in Europe has made people less happy. — Derek Bok

Trust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse — Sissela Bok

We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect. — Sissela Bok

Fewer than half of all university professors publish as much as one article per year. — Derek Bok

Trust and integrity are precious resources, easily squandered, hard to regain. They can thrive only on a foundation of respect for veracity. — Sissela Bok

Teaching methods are often inadequate for the goals faculties are trying to achieve. Important courses such as expository writing and foreign languages are frequently taught by untrained graduate students and underpaid adjunct teachers. — Derek Bok

Soon-Bok Kim closed her eyes, said rapid prayers in castellano, beat the steering wheel, begged God to save her and her stupid husband, said they would become better Christians. — Eric Jerome Dickey

This book would not have been made without the tireless mentoring and rare friendship of Christian Bok, Steven Collis and Nicole Markotic. — Jordan Scott

An educated man must have a "curiosity in exploring the unfamiliar and unexpected, an open-mindedness in entertaining opposing points of view, tolerance for the ambiguity that surrounds so many important issues, and a willingness to make the best decisions he can in the face of uncertainty and doubt". — Derek Bok

Universities are in a position where they can think very creatively. — Derek Bok

The television screen is the lens through which most children learn about violence. Through the magnifying power of this lens, their everyday life becomes suffused by images of shootings, family violence, gang warfare, kidnappings, and everything else that contributes to violence in our society. It shapes their experiences long before they have had the opportunity to consent to such shaping or developed the ability to cope adequately with this knowledge. — Sissela Bok

Doctoral training is devoted almost entirely to learning to do research, even though most Ph.Ds who enter academic life spend far more time teaching than they do conducting experiments or writing books. — Derek Bok

I love to make soups. My father used to say, 'There's nothing like a nice bowl of soup.' One of my favorites is ... ready? Broccolini, white bean and hot Italian sausage soup. I've used escarole. Escarole in beans is unbelievable, or you can use bok choy, any kind. You can really fool around. That's one of my good ones. — Tony Danza

To mature is in part to realize that while complete intimacy and omniscience and power cannot be had, self-transcendence, growth, and closeness to others are nevertheless within one's reach. — Sissela Bok

In 1968, the situation at Harvard was not one of which we can be proud. In that year, the proportion of minority persons in salary and wage positions was approximately 3 per cent. Virtually no minority workers were employed on Harvard construction projects. — Derek Bok

The oldest of the arts and the youngest of the professions. — Derek Bok

Empathy and fellow feeling form the very basis of morality. The capacities for empathy, for feeling responsibility toward others and for reaching out to help them can be stunted or undermined early on, depending on a child's experiences in the home and neighborhood. It becomes too easy to turn our backs on fellow human beings ... to have 'compassion fatigue.' Technology, we are learning, is not neutral. — Sissela Bok

Again and again, universities have put a low priority on the very programs and initiatives that are needed most to increase productivity and competitiveness, improve the quality of government, and overcome the problems of illiteracy, miseducation, and unemployment. — Derek Bok

Most high governmental officials who speak of education policy seem to conceive of education in this light - as a way to ensure economic competitiveness and continued economic growth. I strongly disagree with this approach. — Derek Bok

Confidentiality refers to the boundaries surrounding shared secrets and to the process of guarding these boundaries. While confidentiality protects much that is not in fact secret, personal secrets lie at its core. The innermost, the vulnerable, often the shameful: these aspects of self-disclosure help explain why one name for professional confidentiality has been "the professional secret." Such secrecy is sometimes mistakenly confused with privacy; yet it can concern many matters in no way private, but that someone wishes to keep from the knowledge of third parties. — Sissela Bok

Ever since economists revealed how much universities contribute to economic growth, politicians have paid close attention to higher education. — Derek Bok

The first country to adopt happiness as an official goal of public policy is the tiny little country of Bhutan in Asia near China and India. — Derek Bok

I think any self-respecting educational institution ought to judge its policies by its best estimate of what their long-term consequences for their students and for the society will be. — Derek Bok

What college is all about is some kind of 4-year game about who is going to end up with the highest grades. And I don't mean to say that academic achievement isn't important. But it is, after all, a means to an end. — Derek Bok

If you think the cost of education is high, think about ignorance. — Derek Bok

If one takes meaning into consideration, happiness might best be described as "a zest for life in all its complexity," as Sissela Bok writes in her book. To achieve it means to "attach our lives to something larger than ourselves." To be happy, one must do. It could be something as simple as teaching Sunday school or as grand as leading nonviolent protests. It could be as cerebral as seeking the cure for cancer or as physical as climbing mountains. It could be creating art. And it could be raising a child - my "best piece of poetrie," as Ben Jonson said in his elegy for his seven-year-old son. — Jennifer Senior

Apart from finding a first job, college graduates seem to adapt more easily than those with only a high school degree as the economy evolves and labor-market needs change. — Derek Bok

Some level of truthfulness has always been seen as essential to human society, no matter how deficient the observance of other moral principles. — Sissela Bok

There is far too much law for those who can afford it and far too little for those who cannot. — Derek Bok

Much as being active in the antislavery movement of the last century involved more than not engaging in slavery oneself, so joining in an antiviolence movement has to go beyond opting for nonviolence in one's personal life. It calls for engaging in imaginative and forceful practices of nonviolent resistance to violence, including taking a stand toward entertainment violence. — Sissela Bok

As countries embrace mass higher education, the cost of maintaining universities increases dramatically relative to an elite system. — Derek Bok

Colleges do not merely offer preparation for the future; they occupy four years of a student's life, and an institution should do what it can to make these years absorbing and enjoyable. — Derek Bok

I don't regard the fact that there's a disparity in test scores nearly as importantly as I do the need for diversity, because I know from long experience that test scores, though useful, are a very limited measure of things that matter in choosing students. — Derek Bok

They were Chinese vampires. They were discovered during renovation work at the Bok Kai Temple in Old Sacramento. One of the priests there told his brother about them. The brother's whatever the Chinese version of mobbed up is. Alex here thinks he's using them to distract the Nortenos and the Black Dragons long enough to take over the marijuana trade in Sacramento using the stuff they're making in a bunch of grow houses in Elk Grove."
Ted stared at me. "And will the Chinese vampires be joined by legions of Korean werewolves who have been cooking meth in trailer parks in Truckee?
"No. The werewolves are refusing to get involved. Trust me, I've tried to talk them into helping. They'll have nothing to do with it. — Eileen Rendahl

Colleges and universities, for all the benefits they bring, accomplish far less for their students than they should. Many students graduate without being able to write well enough to satisfy their employers ... reason clearly or perform competently in analyzing complex, non-technical problems. — Derek Bok

Early admission programs tend to advantage the advantaged. — Derek Bok

It is the growth of advertising in this country which, more than any single element, has brought the American magazine to its present enviable position in points of literary, illustrative and mechanical excellence. — Edward Bok

I think it's very important to emphasize that there are many, many different educational institutions in what we call higher education, and they educate an enormous diversity of students. I think all of those institutions have to define particular roles for themselves; they can't do everything at once. — Derek Bok

Derek Bok's most recent book, Our Underachieving Colleges, is worth scrutinizing ... Bok is ... on solid ground in pointing out that our colleges underachieve in preparing students for citizenship. — George Leef

For some students, especially in the sciences, the knowledge gained in college may be directly relevant to graduate study. For almost all students, a liberal arts education works in subtle ways to create a web of knowledge that will illumine problems and enlighten judgment on innumerable occasions in later life. — Derek Bok

I think one thing that does cause unhappiness is protracted anxiety and worry. — Derek Bok

The college that takes students with modest entering abilities and improves their abilities substantially contributes more than the school that takes very bright students and helps them develop only modestly. — Derek Bok

And as for me, though that I konne but lyte,
On bokes for to rede I me delyte,
And to hem yive I feyth and ful credence,
And in myn herte have hem in reverence
So hertely, that ther is game noon
That fro my bokes maketh me to goon,
But yt be seldom on the holyday,
Save, certeynly, whan that the month of May
Is comen, and that I here the foules synge,
And that the floures gynnen for to sprynge,
Farewel my bok and my devocioun! — Geoffrey Chaucer

Universities are institutions run by amateurs to train professionals. — Derek Bok

I don't think the alternative to Yale is jail by any means. On the other hand, there is a mass of research that does show that there are real advantages to your subsequent career in going to selective institutions. — Derek Bok

I suspect that no community will become humane and caring by restricting what its members can say. — Derek Bok

Efforts to develop critical thinking falter in practice because too many professors still lecture to passive audiences instead of challenging students to apply what they have learned to new questions. — Derek Bok

Economists who have studied the relationship between education and economic growth confirm what common sense suggests: The number of college degrees is not nearly as important as how well students develop cognitive skills, such as critical thinking and problem-solving ability. — Derek Bok

Psychologists have found that we are more likely, in looking back at our lives, to remember high points and dramatic shifts in far greater proportion than ongoing stretches of happiness or misery. — Sissela Bok

Secrecy is as indispensable to human beings as fire, and as greatly feared. — Sissela Bok

Good teaching is creating really interesting generalizations out of war stories. — Derek Bok

If you think education is expensive, try ignorance. — Robert Orben

Bok strongly believed that good art should find a place in public buildings where large numbers of persons might find easy access to it. — Edward Bok

The American advertiser has made the superior American magazine of today possible. — Edward Bok

Derek Bok asks the right question, 'What policies would produce the greatest happiness?' and he gives great and often startling answers, combining his deep knowledge of politics with the new findings of happiness research. — Richard Layard, Baron Layard

The vast majority of students probably emerge from college with an adequate grasp of no more than a single method of inquiry. Even this capacity may erode over time if it does not relate to experiences and problems that recur in the student's later life. — Derek Bok

What we are doing in educating students is trying to prepare them to live more fulfilling lives for the decades after they graduate. And trying to provide a better, richer, fairer, more decent society for the generations after. — Derek Bok

I think it's sort of an outrage that companies should have to hire firms to teach the college graduates they employ how to write. — Derek Bok

Liars share with those they deceive the desire not to be deceived. — Sissela Bok

Lemme take your picture! You fucking bok gwai low got a face carved out of rotten potato cured in dogshit, runover with a towtruck driven by Hellen Keller in a puke fit on pills ... — Frank Chin

There are no tests similar to SATs to tell us how much undergraduates know. State legislators, who appropriate billions of dollars each year to higher education, are naturally interested in finding out what they are getting for their money. — Derek Bok

Someone like you could be so, how do you say, fortunate, said Bok. — David Baldacci

A young person, to achieve, must first get out of his mind any notion either of the ease or rapidity of success. Nothing ever just happens in this world. — Edward Bok

Critics of American colleges typically attribute the failings of undergraduate education to a tendency on the part of professors to neglect their teaching to concentrate on research. In fact, the evidence does not support this thesis, except perhaps in major research universities. — Derek Bok

There's a great deal of difference between thinking reflectively about moral issues and achieving higher standards of ethical behavior. — Derek Bok

Whatever matters to human beings, trust is the atmosphere in which it thrives. — Sissela Bok

Find your place and hold it: find your work and do it. And put everything you've got into it. — Edward Bok