How often our involuntary facial motions testify to the thoughts we were keeping secret, and betray us to those around!

If to take up books were to take them in, and if to see them were to consider them, and to run through them were to grasp them, I should be wrong to make myself out quite as ignorant as I say I am.

I listen with attention to the judgment of all men; but so far as I can remember, I have followed none but my own.

There is no desire more natural than the desire of knowledge. (Il n'est desir plus naturel que le desir de connaissance)

I would have every man write what he knows and no more.

Teach him a certain refinement in sorting out and selecting his arguments, with an affection for relevance and so for brevity. Above all let him be taught to throw down his arms and surrender to truth as soon as he perceives it, whether the truth is born at his rival's doing or within himself from some change in his ideas.

We only labor to stuff the memory, and leave the conscience and the understanding unfurnished and void.