The mind can atrophy, like the muscles, if it is not used.

True freedom is impossible without a mind made free by discipline.

The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth.

... always keep in mind that an article of faith is not something that the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.

The student can read as fast as his mind will let him, not as slow as his eyes make him.

Don't try to resist the effect that a work of imaginative literature has on you.

The reader who fails to ponder, or at least mark, the words he does not understand is headed for disaster.

From your point of view as a reader, therefore, the most important words are those that give you trouble.

Most of us are addicted to non-active reading. The outstanding fault of the non-active or undemanding reader is his inattention to words, and his consequent failure to come to terms with the author.

In short, we can only learn from our "betters".

What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business.

To the militant, identity is everything.

Politicians who took us to war should have been given the guns and told to settle their differences themselves, instead of organising nothing better than legalised mass murder.

Finally someone takes me seriously enough to ask for my word of honor, and it’s a villain.

Almost all of us long for peace and freedom; but very few of us have much enthusiasm for the thoughts, feelings, and actions that make for peace and freedom.

It's sometimes easier to do the impossible than to do the embarrassing.

I'm not here to say I don't eat vegetables - I do, a lot of them - but, from a soil perspective, they're actually more costly than a cow grazing on grass.

I grew up performing and singing. And acting, the idea of it just sort of fell into my lap. And I was a little hesitant at first, but I was like, okay, I’ll try it.

I have never been able to sleep with anyone. I require a full-size bed so that I can lie in the middle of it and extend my arms spreadeagle on both sides without being obstructed.

Where there's a will there's a dead person.

The artist in his teens who is happy is a charlatan. Life comes bursting in all around lis too suddenly, too crudely, too cruelly, for happiness.