It’s my firm conviction, now more than ever, that the degree to which we are able and willing to struggle for ownership of our attention is the degree to which we are free.

I do not believe that so-called truly pious people are good because they are pious but pious because they are good.

Understanding something is no reason for believing that it is true.

What am I?
What shall I do?
What may I hope and believe?
All things in philosophy can be reduced to this.

Quite a few people read simply to prevent themselves from thinking.

A book is a mirror: if an ape looks into it, an apostle is unlikely to look out.
We have no words for speaking about wisdom to idiots.
Whoever understands the wise is wise already.

If mankind suddenly became virtuous, thousands would starve.

It is the mark of an educated man to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.

If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.

Never has a man who has bent himself been able to make others straight.

To pursue learning is to be human, to give it up to be a beast.

You shouldn’t worry about criticism from someone that you would never ask advice from.

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. It has no satiation point, since its consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression.

Nothing, to my way of thinking, is better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

Always play the hand you have, not the one you wish you had.

One of the most realistic parts of Lord of the Rings is that almost no one wanted to get involved, until it was very nearly too late.

It takes a lot of work to make something simple.

One who looks around him is intelligent; one who looks within him is wise.

Simplicity is the key to brilliance.