Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts.

We should be surprised that a matter that generally plays such an important part in the life of man has hitherto been almost entirely disregarded by philosophers, and lies before us as raw and untreated material.

What people commonly call fate is mostly their own stupidity.

In their hearts women think that it is men's business to earn money and theirs to spend it.

...in the end every one stands alone, and the important thing is who it is that stands alone.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Monotheistic religions alone furnish the spectacle of religious wars, religious persecutions, heretical tribunals, that breaking of idols and destruction of images of the gods, that razing of Indian temples and Egyptian colossi, which had looked on the sun 3,000 years: just because a jealous god had said, Thou shalt make no graven image.