Words worth keeping

Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.

The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.

Great minds are always feared by lesser minds.

I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think

You might be poor, your shoes might be broken, but your mind is a palace.

It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.

Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

The past has no power over the present moment.

Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.

Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone’s life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.

We have to allow ourselves to be loved by the people who really love us, the people who really matter. Too much of the time, we are blinded by our own pursuits of people to love us, people that don't even matter, while all that time we waste and the people who do love us have to stand on the sidewalk and watch us beg in the streets! It's time to put an end to this. It's time for us to let ourselves be loved.