All sciences are vain and full of errors that are not born of Experience, the mother of all Knowledge.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach.

It is better to know how to learn than to know.

Reading without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly - they'll go through anything. You read and you?re pierced.

The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence.

A man who has never gone to school may steal a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand.

In mathematics you don't understand things. You just get used to them.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it.

My weapon is literature

Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge

When I am attacked by gloomy thoughts, nothing helps me so much as running to my books. They quickly absorb me and banish the clouds from my mind.

Show me a family of readers, and I will show you the people who move the world.

The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.

Don't learn to do, but learn in doing.

Industrialize or perish.

Patience is a virtue, and I'm learning patience. It's a tough lesson.

Imagination is the source of every form of human achievement. And it's the one thing that I believe we are systematically jeopardizing in the way we educate our children and ourselves.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.