Arthur Schopenhauer

Style is what gives value and currency to thoughts.

After your death you will be what you were before your birth.

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else's head instead of with one's own.

Just as the largest library, badly arranged, is not so useful as a very moderate one that is well arranged, so the greatest amount of knowledge, if not elaborated by our own thoughts, is worth much less than a far smaller volume that has been abundantly and repeatedly thought over.

Every truth passes through three stages before it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed, in the second it is opposed, in the third it is regarded as self evident.

To live alone is the fate of all great souls.

Wealth is like sea-water; the more we drink, the thirstier we become; and the same is true of fame.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can't expect an angel to look out.

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, ''Lighthouses'' as the poet said ''erected in the sea of time.'' They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind, Books are humanity in print.