Others

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

All my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.

I like to have a man’s knowledge comprehend more than one class of topics, one row of shelves. I like a man who likes to see a fine barn as well as a good tragedy.

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

A cup is useful only when it is empty; and a mind that is filled with beliefs, with dogmas, with assertions, with quotations is really an uncreative mind.

The man with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds.

If you have an important point to make, don’t try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus.

A good indignation makes an excellent speech.

People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.

We give advice by the bucket but take it by the grain.

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t.

We are never so generous as when giving advice.

You don’t need to take a person’s advice to make him feel good—just ask for it.

Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one.

Refusing to have an opinion is a way of having one, isn’t it?

A public-opinion poll is no substitute for thought.

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.

It is only about things that do not interest one that one can give a really unbiased opinion, which is no doubt the reason why an unbiased opinion is always valueless.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching.

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.

My personal hobbies are reading, listening to music and silence.