“Commit yourself to lifelong learning. The most valuable asset you'll ever have is your mind and what you put into it.”

Source: White Oleander

Philosophy and Living (1939)
Context: Throughout man's career intelligence and charity have been man's distinctive and most valuable assets. One of our early pre-human ancestors is said to have been much like the Spectral Tarsier, a little mammal about the size of a mouse, with long wiry fingers and huge forward-looking eyes adapted for binocular vision. Not by weapons but by correlation of subtle eyes and subtle hands through subtle brain, this creature triumphed. And man himself conquered the world by the same means, by attention, by discrimination, by skilled manipulation, by versatility; in fact by intelligence and imagination in adapting himself to an ever-changing environment.

The Master and Lyra, in Ch. 4 : The Alethiometer
His Dark Materials, The Golden Compass (1995)
Context: "Lyra, I'm going to give you something, and you must promise to keep it private. Will you swear to that?"
"Yes," Lyra said.
He crossed to the desk and took from a drawer a small package wrapped in black velvet. When he unfolded the cloth, Lyra saw something like a large watch or a small clock: a thick disk of gold and crystal. It might have been a compass or something of the sort.
"What is it?" she said.
"It's an alethiometer. It's one of only six that were ever made. Lyra, I urge you again: keep it private. It would be better if Mrs. Coulter didn't know about it. Your uncle — "
"But what does it do?"
"It tells you the truth. As for how to read it, you'll have to learn by yourself. Now go — it's getting lighter — hurry back to your room before anyone sees you."

Source: Tomorrow Is Now (1963), p. 71

Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)

Doctorate Award Speech, Kean University (2004)

Address to the Fiji Law Society, Coral Coast, Fiji, 2 July 2005 (excerpts)

The Past Didn't Go Anywhere, Righteous Babe Records (1996)