I don't look on poetry as closed works. I feel they're going on all the time in my head and I occasionally snip off a length.

Better know nothing than half-know many things.

Know what you are talking about.

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.

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.

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

You can never be overdressed or overeducated.

My weapon is literature

The delight of opening a new pursuit, or a new course of reading, imparts the vivacity and novelty of youth even to old age.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Learn as though you would never be able to master it; hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it.

The task of a writer is not to solve the problem but to state the problem correctly.

When you know better you do better.

If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.

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

Necessity is the mother of invention.

With educated people, I suppose, punctuation is a matter of rule; with me it is a matter of feeling. But I must say I have great respect for the semi-colon; it's a useful little chap.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

Courage, conviction and confidence.