If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good

Utter originality is, of course, out of the question

What matters is not the idea a man holds, but the depth at which he holds it

Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts

Genius ... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one

Real education must ultimately be limited to men who insist on knowing, the rest is mere sheep-herding

Men do not understand books until they have a certain amount of life, or at any rate no man understands a deep book, until he has seen and lived at least part of its contents

There is no reason why the same man should like the same books at eighteen and forty-eight

Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand