"If we praise mediocre philosophy and disrespect competent plumbing neither our
theories nor our pipes will hold water." John Gardner

"Only after as many centuries of freedom as there have been centuries of
oppression will we really know what our natures are." John Mill

"Education is the point at which we decide whether we love the world enough
to assume responsibility for it and by the same token save it from that ruin
which, except for renewal, except for the coming of the new and young, would
be inevitable." Hannah Arendt

"I never, indeed, wavered in the conviction that happines is the test of all
rules of conduct, and the end of life. But I now thought that this end was only
to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought)
who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the
happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit,
followed not as a means, but as itself and ideal end. Aiming thus at something
else, they find happiness by the way." John Mill

"The clothes don't make the man; the outfit does not make the monk."

"The brain is for creating ideas, not storing them."

"I turned to the artists. Nobody was more ignorant of the arts than
myself; nobody was more fully persuaded that the artists were possessed of
amazing knowledge. I soon discovered, however, that they were in as bad a way as
the poets, and that both had fallen into the same misconception. Because the
most skillful of them excel others in their particular jobs, they think
themselves wiser than all the rest of mankind. This arrogance spoilt all their
skill in my eyes, so that, putting myself in the place of the oracle, and asking
myself whether I would rather be what I am or what they are, know what they
know, or know that I know nothing, I very readily answered, for myself and the
god, that I had rather remain as I am. ... None of us, neither the sophists,
nor the poets, nor the orators, nor the artists, nor I, know what is the nature
of the true, the good, or the beautiful. But there is this difference between
us; that, though none of these people know anything, they all think they know
something; whereas for my part, if I know nothing, I am at least in no doubt of
my ignorance. So the superiority of wisdom, imputed to me by the oracle, is
reduced merely to my being fully convinded that I am ignorant of what I do not
know." - Socrates as quoted by Rousseau

"They are trying to help you, but you have to want to help yourself and you
can't want to help yourself if you don't think you need help." -Greg Guevara