Jonathan Pond

“existence. If we think of it, all that a University, or final highest School can do for us, is still but what the first School began doing,—teach us to read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences; we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowledge, is the Books themselves! It depends on what we read, after all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true University of these days is a Collection of Books.”
― Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History

“Never is a man wholly a saint or a sinner.”
― Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

“What did the Greeks admire in Odysseus? Above all, his capacity for lying, and for cunning and terrible retribution; his being equal to contingencies; when need be, appearing nobler than the noblest; the ability to be whatever he chose; heroic perseverence; having all means at his command; possession of intellect his intellect is the admiration of the gods, they smile when they think of it: all this is the Greek ideal! The most remarkable thing about it is that the antithesis of appearance and being is not felt at all and is thus of no significance morally. Have there ever been such consummate actors!”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality

“Everything changes and nothing stands still.”
― Heraclitus