Quote of the Day: ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ Author L. Frank Baum on the Power of Learning

Even before the release of the two-part film adaptation of Wicked in 2024 and 2025, the legacy of the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, has lived on in strong ways throughout the decades. And even before that, the creation of this land of Oz in 1900 is what jumpstarted this fantastical realm and its characters along with it. That’s all thanks to L. Frank Baum, the American author who created the Oz books and wrote the original 14 of them. Today’s quote of the day comes from one of those books, and it highlights the importance of and power of learning.

According to Britannica, Baum was born in Chittenango, NY, in 1856. EBSCO reported that he had German immigrant parents and a big family, but he had health issues as a child, which required him to be tutored at home until the age of 12. As an adult, he began his writing career as a journalist in South Dakota and then Chicago. 

Baum first published Father Goose, a kids’ “nonsense verse” book with funny poems or limerick-type verses, in 1899, and it was successful. He followed this up a year later with his most famous work, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was a major hit. As mentioned before, he wrote a total of 14 Oz books, and after he died in 1919, his book publisher chose another children’s writer, Ruth Plumly Thompson, to continue on with the stories, per EBSCO. She wrote 19 more in the series, and then it canonically continued with other writers after that.

Baum was just as imaginative and whimsical in his real-life persona as his books were. As EBSCO reported, the author wrote in prologues in his stories that he communicated with Oz, Dorothy and Princess Ozma via wireless telegraphy. With this, he also made himself the “Royal Historian of Oz” and brought the characters and this world to life in a way that didn’t exist at the time.

His highly successful Oz series was not just high fantasy and fun for kids—Baum put many lessons in these stories. While his characters embarked on adventures, he also made sure to imbue good values into his heroes for kids to learn. And that’s where today’s quote comes from: a line from Baum about knowledge being the greatest gift in life.

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Quote of the Day by L. Frank Baum

“The more one knows, the luckier he is, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life.”

This quote can be found in the seventh book in Baum’s Oz series of books, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, published in 1913. The series started in 1900 with the publication of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which covers the events we saw in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. The next two novels follow two other stories that happen in the magical world of Oz, with the return of fan-favorites such as the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman in the second book, and even Dorothy comes back in book three. 

Once you get to the seventh book in the series, where this line comes from, Baum focuses on an adventure revolving around a Munchkin boy named Ojo whose uncle was turned into a statue. He sets off to find a cure for this magical spell, and on his journey he meets Scraps, aka the Patchwork Girl, who is a patchwork doll come to life.

This is also the book where he states that he communicates with Ozians via telegraph, inserting himself into this magical world in a fun way.

In Chapter 2, “The Crooked Magician,” Ojo is traveling with his Unc Nunkie when they stop at Dr. Pipt’s house (aka the Crooked Magician). They’re welcomed in by his wife, Dame Margolotte, and eventually meet the doctor, who is an old friend of Unc Nunkie. 

Ojo tells them that he knows very little of Oz and its history or people because he’s only ever lived with his uncle, who doesn’t speak much—he only really says one word at a time—and therefore didn’t teach Ojo about anything in Oz.

To this, Margolotte tells Ojo that this is why he is “Ojo the Unlucky,” because: “The more one knows, the luckier he is, for knowledge is the greatest gift in life.”

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Deeper Meaning of L. Frank Baum’s Quote—The Power of Learning

With this quote and through this character, Baum shares a nugget of wisdom with those reading his books, especially children. He’s saying that if you yearn and search for meaning and truth, you’re some of the luckiest people around because the greatest gift in life is being knowledgeable. It encourages kids who are already growing their minds through reading to continue seeking out wisdom.

This quote points kids in the right direction when it comes to intelligence. It’s not saying a more modern sentiment like “school is cool,” but it’s saying that learning and knowing things are gifts and you’re lucky if you’re able to do that. 

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More Quotes from L. Frank Baum

• “Imagination has brought mankind through the dark ages to its present state of civilization… Imagination has given us the steam engine, the telephone, the talking-machine, and the automobile, for these things had to be dreamed of before they became realities.”
• “I am convinced that the only people worthy of consideration in this world are the unusual ones. For the common folk are like the leaves of a tree, and live and die unnoticed.”
• “Hearts will never be practical until they are made unbreakable.”
• “A little misery, at times, makes one appreciate happiness more.”
• “I never deal in transformations, for they are not honest, and no respectable sorceress likes to make things appear to be what they are not.”

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