One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.

Thinking is more interesting than knowing, but less interesting than looking.

The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands.

Even truth needs to be clad in new garments if it is to appeal to a new age.

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.

Life is but thought.

To be is to be the value of a variable.

It is only in the world of objects that we have time and space and selves.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always.

Many people, including some conservatives, have been very impressed with how brainy the president and his advisers are. But that is not quite as reassuring as it might seem.

The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man's foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.

Every man must decide for himself whether he shall master his world or be mastered by it.

The destiny of man is in his own soul.

Everything that is beautiful and noble is the product of reason and calculation.

I'm reading a book, because I'm brainy. No, it is a book - if you don't know, it is like a blog except bigger.

We see things as we are, not as they are.

The farther reason looks the greater is the haze in which it loses itself.

Memory is more indelible than ink.

If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right.

One can be the master of what one does, but never of what one feels.

Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize it as such.

Wit is the salt of conversation, not the food.

Our first intuitions are the true ones.

Pesticides came about after the first world war. Some brainy petrochemical money maker said, 'Hey, that mustard gas worked great on people, maybe we could dilute it down and spray it on our crops to deal with pests.'

Talent works, genius creates.

If he who employs coercion against me could mould me to his purposes by argument, no doubt he would. He pretends to punish me because his argument is strong; but he really punishes me because his argument is weak.

There are no elements so diverse that they cannot be joined in the heart of a man.

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.

It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.

You create your own reality.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.

Nothing is so good as it seems beforehand.

When one teaches, two learn.

It is one thing to praise discipline, and another to submit to it.

At the end of the day, teachers aren't going to mess about trying to make me into an Einstein, 'cause it was never gonna happen. We can't all be brainy, can we? That's just the way the world is.

Inspiration arrives as a packet of material to be delivered.

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.

'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.

The new industries are brainy industries and so-called knowledge workers tend to like to be near other people who are the same. Think of the City of Hollywood. People cluster. This means you have winning regions, such as London and Cambridge, and losing regions. The people who want to be top lawyers in Sunderland are hoovered up by London.

Genius is never understood in its own time.

A man must not deny his manifest abilities, for that is to evade his obligations.

Be sure your wisest words are those you do not say.

The brainy class is made up of individuals who think for themselves and beyond formal education are continuous learners who tend to be self-taught.

I always knew I was brainy. It struck me when I was a child that I wanted to be an adult because I never felt I belonged among children whose minds were so much simpler than mine.

An artist is he for whom the goal and center of life is to form his mind.

Brainy's the new sexy.

Ideals are the world's masters.

If kids and teenagers can get into a band, it's probably not because they think it's brainy.

When all else is lost, the future still remains.

All wish to possess knowledge, but few, comparatively speaking, are willing to pay the price.