Quotes Relating to Reading, Learning and Truth

Whilst they maybe a few notiable exceptions, reading is essential to our growth.

Marcus Aurelius (121-180 BCE) was the Roman emperor from 161 to 180 at the time when the Roman empire was at its peak. He was a Stoic philosopher and a member of the Nerva–Antonine dynasty, the last of the rulers later known as the Five Good Emperors. There were not many good Roman Emporers.

He could read and write Greek. In his book Mediations which is still read by many as a guide to great leadership. This book was intended for his personal use only.

One memorable quote (of many) is:

When I look back, I am so impressed again with the life-giving power of literature. If I were a young person today, trying to gain a sense of myself in the world, I would do that again by reading, just as I did when I was young.

Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
American memoirist, essayist, poet and civil rights activist

Think before you speak. Read before you think.

Fran Lebowitz (DOB 1950)
American author, public speaker, cultural critic, and actor

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

Rene Descartes (1592-1637)
Discourse on the Method (1637)

Reading is important. If you know how to read then the whole world opens up to you. So, I want everybody read hard. Read as many books as you can.

President Barack Obama (2009-2017)
Kids at the White House Easter Egg Roll: 2 Apr 2013

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies… The man who never reads lives only one.

George R.R. Martin (DOB 1948)
American author, screenwriter, and television producer
A Dance with Dragons (2011)

Reading is essential for those who seek to rise about the ordinary.

Jim Rohn (1930-2009)
American entrepreneur, author and motivational speaker

In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero.

Charlie Munger (1924-2023)
Vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

George Orwell (Eric Arthur Blair 1903-1950)
1984 (8 June 1949)

Perseverance alone does not assure success. No amount of stalking will lead to game in a field that contains none.

I Ching (1000-750 BCE)

No amount of research will lead to better outcomes if you are looking in the wrong field.

But I do not feel obliged to believe that that same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and intellect has intended us to forego their use and by some other means to give us knowledge which we can attain by them. He would not require us to deny sense and reason in physical matters which are set before our eyes and minds by direct experience or necessary demonstrations.

Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany (1615)
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.

Mark Twain (1835-1910
Notebook (1898)

He, who will not reason, is a bigot; he, who cannot, is a fool; and he, who dares not, is a slave.

William Drummond
Academical Questions (1805)

The foolish reject what they see; not what they think
The wise reject what they think: not what the see

Huang Po [h-wung baw] died 850
Chinese Zen Buddhist

The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynisism by thos who have not got it.

George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

Que sais-je? What do I know?

Nothing is so firmly belived as what we least know.

Michel de Montaigne [mon·teh·nyuh] (1533-1592)
French author, philosopher and statesman

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks on already knows.

Epictetus (50-138 CE)
Greek Stoic philosopher

A belief is not true because if is useful.

NHenri Frederik Amiel (1821-1881)
Swiss Huguenot

Why growth is so hard. Growth requires loss – a loss of your old values, your old behavors, your old loves, your old identity.

Mark Manson Newsletter 17th November 2024
Mark Manson

Somebody Else’s Problem Field relies on people’s natural predisposition not to see anything that:

Life, the universe and everything (1982)
Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

A learning experience is one of those things that says, “You know that thing you just did? Don’t do that.”

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.

Douglas Adams
The Salmon of Doubt (2002)

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a small café in Rickmansworth suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be made a good and happy place. This time it was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Douglas Adams
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

The quality of any advice anybody has to offer has to be judged against the quality of life they actually lead.

Douglas Adams
The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide: Five Complete Novels and One Story

Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I’m sure we’ll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn’t withstand the attack then down it goes. Religion doesn’t seem to work like that; it has certain ideas at the heart of it which we call sacred or holy or whatever. That’s an idea we’re so familiar with, whether we subscribe to it or not, that it’s kind of odd to think what it actually means, because really what it means is “Here is an idea or a notion that you’re not allowed to say anything bad about; you’re just not. Why not? – because you’re not!”

Douglas Adams

There is nothing more frightful than ignorance in action.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
German writer (1749–1832)

The Dunning–Kruger effect describes the tendency of people with low ability in a specific area to give overly positive assessments of this ability. It also refers to the tendency of high performers to underestimate their skills.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, the famous Roman orator, lawyer, politician and writer was born 3 January 106 BC in Arpino, Italy. He was executed on 7 December 43 BC, Formia in Italy. He was executed, at the age of 63, because of the conflict between Mark Antony and Octavian. Cicero had his neck severed by Mark Antony’s men.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect
Unskilled and Unaware of It – Dunning and Kruger (1999)

Last updated on Tuesday 12 May 2026 at 17:19 by administrators