He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Dare to think for yourself.

Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

The deepest sin against the human mind is to believe things without evidence.

God created man in His own image, says the Bible; philosophers reverse the process: they create God in theirs.

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.

What we know is a drop, what we don't know is an ocean.

Education is an ornament for the prosperous, a refuge for the unfortunate.

Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.

Education is a system of imposed ignorance.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world

Many much-learned men have no intelligence.

It is what you read when you don't have to that determines what you will be when you can't help it.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

Educate the children and it won't be necessary to punish the men.

A spirit of national masochism prevails, encouraged by an effete corps of impudent snobs who characterize themselves as intellectuals.

The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of past centuries.