In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of intelligent effort.
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.
Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are.
The precision of naming takes away from the uniqueness of seeing.
Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.
Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head, and knows not that it brings abundance to drive away the hunger.
The more refined and subtle our minds, the more vulnerable they are.
One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.
Not only strike while the iron is hot, but make it hot by striking.
In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.
It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.
All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.
Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
Really, the only thing that makes sense is to strive for greater collective enlightenment.
A man doesn’t know what he knows until he knows what he doesn’t know.
Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.
A certain amount of opposition is a great help to a man. Kites rise against, not with, the wind.
We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe.
The return we reap from generous actions is not always evident.
I’m not a genius. I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.
Genius is rarely able to give any account of its own processes.
Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so, too.
We should not moor a ship with one anchor, or our life with one hope.
Patience and tenacity are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness.
To work with the hands or brain, according to our requirements and our capacities, to do that which lies before us to do, is more honorable than rank and title.
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.
I was super brainy and a proper geek at school, but there would always be a boy. But that sort of obsession did turn me into a songwriter. My writing has always come from that feeling of infatuation.
An education system suits some more than others. It can lead you out into life or lead you on a wild goose chase. It can help to make you miserable, or dull and nasty and insipid, or profoundly stupid in the special way that ‘brainy’ people can be.
Sometimes you can know too much. A lot of brainy people like Stephen Fry are quite depressive.
I like both athletic girls and girly girls. It depends on their personality. I like girls who can go out and play sports with me and throw the football around, but you don’t want a girl who’s too much tougher than you. I like brainy girls who can respond to what I’m saying.
Everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see.
I’m 27. I feel like I get it. I’m OK with being sexy if I feel like it. Some days I’m brainy, some days I’m funny, some days I’m sexy, and sometimes, I just want to dance.
You can’t be taught to be brainy. You’ve either got it or you don’t.
An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.