Chris F

“There exists in man a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition,to the grave.”
― Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

“Man cannot make principles, he can only discover them.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason

“It may sometimes happen that a truth, an insight, which you have slowly and laboriously puzzled out by thinking for yourself could have easily have been found already written in a book: but it is a hundred times more valuable if you have arrived at it by thinking for yourself. For only then will it enter your thought system as an integral part and living member, be perfectly and firmly consistent with it and in accord with all its other consequences and conclusions, bear the hue, colour and stamp of your whole manner of thinking, and have arrived at just the moment it was needed ; thus it will stay firmly and forever lodged in your mind.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer

“Solitude will be welcomed or endured or avoided, according as a man's personal value is large or small.”
― Arthur Schopenhauer