Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

Great is our admiration of the orator who speaks with fluency and discretion.

There’s so much about Dolly Parton that every female artist should look to, whether it’s reading her quotes or reading her interviews or going to one of her live shows. She’s been such an amazing example to every female songwriter out there.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

Children are a wonderful gift. They have an extraordinary capacity to see into the heart of things and to expose sham and humbug for what they are.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

A lot of psychological principles and even medical principles, you see them coming around to what the Bible said hundreds of years ago: a merry heart is good like a medicine.

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Who sows virtue reaps honor.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

A lot of truth is said in jest.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

We cannot always oblige; but we can always speak obligingly.

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect. The judgement of the intellect is only part of the truth.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

One today is worth two tomorrows.

Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

He that sows thorns should never go barefoot.

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

A word is dead when it is said, some say. I say it just begins to live that day.

How far that little candle throws its beams! So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

It is another’s fault if he be ungrateful, but it is mine if I do not give. To find one thankful man, I will oblige a great many that are not so.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

A room without books is like a body without a soul.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.