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

Study without desire spoils the memory, and it retains nothing that it takes in.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I am a part of everything that I have read.

I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

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.

If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, there is no use in reading it at all.

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.

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

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

It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now.

The secret of life is not enjoyment but education through experience.

Investigate, educate and organize.

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

I cannot live without books.

What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to a human soul.

Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress, in every society, in every family.

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

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