What does this quote mean?

“Read not to contradict and confute; nor to believe and take for granted; nor to find talk and discourse; but to weigh and consider.”

Bacon describes reading as active judgment rather than passive agreement or reflexive opposition, making careful consideration the central habit of serious study.

Source note: Of Studies, in Bacon’s instructions for how different kinds of books should be read.

“To define is to limit.”

Definitions clarify ideas but can also narrow them, especially when a label is treated as the complete reality of a person or experience.

Source note: The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891 edition, Chapter 17; Lord Henry answers the Duchess of Monmouth’s question “What are you?” with “To define is to limit.”

“Public opinion—private laziness.”

The epigram provocatively suggests that adopting public opinion can sometimes substitute borrowed judgment for the harder work of forming one’s own view.

Source note: Human, All-Too-Human, Part I, aphorism 482, “Repeated Once More”; Helen Zimmern translation.

“I wish them to be taught to think.”

Education should produce independent judgment rather than polished imitation, so the ability to think becomes more important than accumulating accomplishments for display.

Source note: Thoughts on the Education of Daughters; the sentence summarizes Wollstonecraft’s preference for understanding over decorative instruction.

“Time makes more converts than reason.”

Ideas that initially provoke resistance can become easier to accept as experience changes what people consider normal or possible.

Source note: Common Sense, Introduction; Paine follows his observation about long habits making wrong practices appear right.

“The universe is wider than our views of it.”

Reality exceeds any one viewpoint, so confidence in a perspective should leave room for what has not yet been seen.

Source note: Walden, Conclusion; Thoreau uses the sentence while arguing that familiar human views do not exhaust reality.