The ordinary American - as far as I can tell - knows so much less than he did fifty years ago and has such poor work habits compared with fifty years ago that the average multiplicand of knowledge/capabilities is a much smaller number than it was in 1961.

As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

As a rule, he or she who has the most information will have the greatest success in life.

Ignorance never settles a question.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don't know anything about.

Where the quest for knowledge is relatively, and now almost absolutely, unrestrained, the public benefit will be great, especially where the certainty of the law ensures that knowledge is rewarded. This is exactly the combination that is the foundation of wealth-creation.

Hungry people are always looking for more. More things to do. More to learn. More responsibility to take on.

A brain was only capable of what it could conceive, and it couldn't conceive what it had never experienced

So much in writing depends on the superficiality of one's days.

There's nothing so heavy as books, sir--unless it's bricks.

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see—every scrap

There are small bits of useless knowledge which stick to one's brain like barnacles to