“Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.”

“Talented people hit targets no one else can hit. Ambitious people aim to hit targets no one else can see.”

“Reading is thinking with someone else's head instead of ones own.”

“You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing.”

“Just as one spoils the stomach by overfeeding and thereby impairs the whole body, so can one overload and choke the mind by giving it too much nourishment. For the more one reads the fewer are the traces left of what one has read; the mind is like a tablet that has been written over and over. Hence it is impossible to reflect; and it is only by reflection that one can assimilate what one has read. If one reads straight ahead without pondering over it later, what has been read does not take root, but is for the most part lost.”

“Mensch kann tun was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will. (One can choose what to do, but not what to want.)”

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”