Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. I use the word love here not merely in a personal sense but as a state of being, or a state of grace—not in the infantile American sense of being made happy but in the tough and universal sense of quest and daring and growth.
—James Baldwin
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
—Bertrand Russell
If men could only know each other, they would neither idolize nor hate.
—Elbert Hubbard
Stare. It is the way to educate your eye, and more. Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop. Die knowing something. You are not here long.
—Walker Evans
It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated.
—Alec Bourne
All human beings should try to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.
—James Thurber
Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep insights can be winnowed from deep nonsense.
—Carl Sagan
We are none of us infallible—not even the youngest of us.
—W.H. Thompson
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
—Winston Churchill
Honesty is a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless it is kept under control.
—Don Marquis
The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.
—Walter Bagehot
You know everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
—Will Rogers
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
—Benjamin Disraeli
I liked things better when I didn't understand them.
—Bill Watterson
Education directs all our attention towards knowledge and attaches no importance to understanding. Exposing children to this kind of influence means that they reach adult life having lost themselves, being entirely dependent upon external things—possessions, the opinions of other people, appearances, and so on.
—John G. Bennett