So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk.
You've got to have models in your head. And you've got to array your experience — both vicarious and direct — on this latticework of models.
Nor less I deem that there are Powers / Which of themselves our minds impress; / That we can feed this mind of ours / In a wise passiveness.
Bad books are intellectual poison; they destroy the mind.
A man can be himself only so long as he is alone; and if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free.
Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.