I count it a mistake of our mistaken democracy, that every man who can read print is allowed to believe that he can read all that is printed. I count it a misfortune that serious books are exposed in the public market, like slaves exposed naked for sale. But there we are, since we live in an age of mistaken democracy, we must go through with it.

Emerson said: "Every man I meet is my superior in some way. In that, I learn of him.

Ask questions instead of giving direct orders.

The ability to read opened up a new and magic world for him, a world he had never dreamed of before. It changed him. It broadened his horizon and gave him vision; and, for a quarter of a century, reading remained the dominant passion of his life.

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. -from Song of Myself

I am he who walks the States with a barb'd tongue, questioning every one I meet

Praise ignorance, for what man has not encountered he has not destroyed.

People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Nothing is lost upon a man who is bent upon growth; nothing wasted on one who is always preparing for - life by keeping eyes, mind and heart open to nature, men, books, experience - and what he gathers serves him at unexpected moments in unforeseen ways.

It is ignorance that causes most mistakes.

The only things worth learning are the things you learn after you know it all.