Genius may be almost defined as the faculty of acquiring poverty. [ Whipple ]

Next to acquiring good friends, the best acquisition is that of good books. [ Colton ]

Ambition persevers in the desire of acquiring power, genius flags of itself. [ Madame De Stael ]

If we succeed in acquiring the love of learning, the learning itself is sure to follow. [ Sir John Lubbock ]

Chance suggests thoughts; changes deprive us of them: there is no rule for preserving or acquiring them. [ Pascal ]

He in whom there is much to be developed will be later than others in acquiring true perceptions of himself and the world. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

If a young lady has that discretion and modesty without which all knowledge is little worth, she will never make an ostentatious parade of it, because she will rather be intent on acquiring more than on displaying what she has. [ Hannah More ]

I had fifteen years' apprenticeship on the press of New York, writing editorials upon every conceivable subject, often at a few minutes notice, acquiring in this way rapid thought and rapid expression. ... The proof of genius lies in continuity. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]

Whatever we may say against such collections which present authors in a disjointed form, they nevertheless bring about many excellent results. We are not always so composed, so full of wisdom, that we are able to take in at once the whole scope of a work according to its merits. Do we not mark in a book passages which seem, to have a direct reference to ourselves? Young people especially, who have failed in acquiring a complete cultivation of the mind, are roused in a praiseworthy way by brilliant quotations." [ Goethe ]