The poets and philosophers before me discovered the unconscious; what I discovered was the scientific method by which the unconscious can be studied.

If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owning more to patient attention, than to any other talent.

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody's face but their own.

Wonder is the mother of all science.

When we seek to discover the best in others, we somehow bring out the best in ourselves.

Leaders must understand that some people will inevitably sell out to the evil side. Don't waste your time wondering why; spend your time discovering who.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

All things are filled full of signs, and it is a wise man who can learn about one thing from another.

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

A student is not a container you have to fill, but a torch you have to light up.

Do not be embarrassed by your mistakes. Nothing can teach us better than our understanding of them. This is one of the best ways of self-education.

Personal growth is not a matter of learning new information but of unlearning old limits.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

Read, read, read. Never stop reading. And when you can't read anymore… write.