You may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value to you than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself; because only through ordering what you know by comparing every truth with every other truth can you take complete possession of your knowledge and get it into your power.
He who does not enjoy solitude will not love freedom.
When we read someone else thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. … Accordingly in reading we are for the most part absolved of the work of thinking. … It stems from this that whoever reads very much and almost the whole day, but in between recovers by thoughtless pastime, gradually loses the ability to think on his own – as someone who always rides forgets in the end how to walk. But such is the case of many scholars: they have read themselves stupid. For constant reading immediately taken up again in every free moment is even more mentally paralysing than constant manual labour, since in the latter we can still muse about our own thoughts. But just as a coiled spring finally loses its elasticity through the sustained pressure of a foreign body, so too the mind through the constant force of other people’s thoughts.
Not all writing is worth reading. Just because someone can put words on a page doesn’t mean they are worth reading or add value.
The art of not reading is a very important one. It consists in not taking an interest in whatever may be engaging the attention of general public at any particular time. When some political or ecclesiastical pamphlet, or novel, or poem is making a great commotion, you should remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. - A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.
The task is, not so much to see what no one has seen yet; but to think what nobody has thought yet, about that which everybody sees.
Najjeftiniji oblik ponosa jest nacionalni ponos. On otkriva pomanjkanje individualnih kvaliteta pojednica, kojima bi se dotični mogao ponositi, jer inače ne bi trebao pribjeći onima koje dijeli s milijunima drugih. Onaj koji posjeduje osobne vrline, će najbolje prepoznati pogreške svoje vlastite nacije, jer mu je ona stalno pred očima. Ali svaki jadnik, koji ništa drugo na svijetu ne posjeduje, na što bi mogao biti ponosan, koristi ovo zadnje sredstvo, naciju kojoj pripada, da bi na nešto mogao biti ponosan. Kroz to se osjeća jačim i spreman je s puno zahvalnosti braniti rukama i nogama svaku njezinu pogrešku i glupost.