If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education

Hear the sharp and irreverent words of Frank Zappa, who once declared: “If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.” Though clothed in humor and provocation, this saying carries a truth that is both ancient and enduring: that true learning is not confined to the institutions of prestige, nor purchased with wealth, but is found in the humble temple of books, where the wisdom of ages lies waiting for any soul willing to seek it. Zappa’s words strike at the heart of society’s illusions, exposing the difference between the form of education and its essence.

For many, college has become less a sanctuary of wisdom and more a rite of passage, a place of social bonds, pleasures, and distractions. While it can offer structure, credentials, and community, Zappa reminds us that it is not, by itself, the fountain of wisdom. The halls of universities may echo with laughter and leisure, but the library, with its silent shelves, contains the living voices of Socrates, Shakespeare, Newton, and countless others. To sit among those pages is to converse with immortality.

This saying finds echoes in history. Consider Abraham Lincoln, who rose from the soil of poverty to become one of the greatest leaders of his nation. He did not attend college, nor was he tutored by professors in marble halls. His schooling was limited, yet his education was vast, for he devoured books in the quiet of rural libraries. By candlelight, he studied law, history, and philosophy, and through this self-taught discipline, he became a man of words and vision. His life proves Zappa’s jest carries wisdom: the library can make kings of common men.

And think of Frederick Douglass, born into slavery, denied both freedom and schooling. He risked his life to learn the letters of the alphabet, and through secret study, he mastered language. Books became his liberators, and knowledge his sword. It was not in college that he found his freedom, but in the clandestine education of reading, of seeking truth in the written word. From the power of those stolen pages, he rose to become an orator, writer, and champion of liberty. His example reveals that the true seat of education is wherever the hungry soul meets the wisdom of words.

Yet Zappa’s quote also carries warning. It calls us to remember that the pursuit of degrees and credentials must not be confused with the pursuit of wisdom. Many spend years in schools and emerge holding diplomas yet remain strangers to curiosity, reflection, and depth. To spend one’s time in college without ever venturing into the soul of the library is to mistake appearance for substance. For while the world may reward titles, life itself rewards wisdom, and wisdom dwells in the house of learning.

The lesson is plain: if you seek amusement, there are many places for it. If you seek status, there are institutions to grant it. But if you seek education, if you thirst for knowledge that transforms the heart and strengthens the mind, then turn to the library—whether it be a great public archive or a single shelf of treasured books. True learning demands solitude, discipline, and passion, not the approval of institutions.

Practical action lies before you. Make the library your temple. Read beyond what is assigned, explore beyond what is familiar, question beyond what is comfortable. In books, you will find both the voices of the dead and the wisdom to shape the living. In their pages, you may discover truths that no professor, no classroom, no college can ever give you.

So let Zappa’s words be remembered: college may give you society, but the library gives you soul. If you wish to live not merely as one entertained but as one enlightened, then open a book, and let its voice speak into your being. For in those pages lies the true education—one that makes the mind free, the spirit strong, and the life worthy of remembrance.