What is Education? Why do I need it?

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."
-- Nelson Mandela

“Literacy is a bridge from misery to hope. It is a tool for daily life in modern society. It is a bulwark against poverty, and a building block of development, an essential complement to investments in roads, dams, clinics and factories. Literacy is a platform for democratization, and a vehicle for the promotion of cultural and national identity. Especially for girls and women, it is an agent of family health and nutrition. For everyone, everywhere, literacy is, along with education in general, a basic human right.... Literacy is, finally, the road to human progress and the means through which every man, woman and child can realize his or her full potential.” -- Kofi Annan

"Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune.
-- Jim Rohn

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character - that is the goal of true education.” -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation." -- John F. Kennedy

“Use of brains begets wealth." -- African proverb

"All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth."
-- Aristotle