If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

Every man should let out all the length of all the reigns; should find or make a frank and healthy expression of what force and meaning is in him.

If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The streetis as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie.

Never self-possessed, or prudent, love is all abandonment.

There are many virtues in books, but the essential value is the adding of knowledge to our stock by the record of new facts, and, better, by the record of intuitions which distribute facts, and are the formulas which supersede all histories.

Ten percent of people can think, another ten percent of people think that they think, and eighty percent of people would rather die than be made to think.

The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume, and do not invigorate men.