Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

Stupidity and human incompetence are the great evils, not ambition and glory.

Men have a respect for scholarship and learning greatly out of proportion to the use they commonly serve.

My father was a great sympathizer of Ahad Ha’am. Every Friday night we would read Hebrew together, and often the reading was Ahad Ha’am’s essays.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

There may be a great fire in our hearts, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke.

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

If we don’t plant the right things, we will reap the wrong things. It goes without saying. And you don’t have to be, you know, a brilliant biochemist and you don’t have to have an IQ of 150. Just common sense tells you to be kind, ninny, fool. Be kind.

Our generation in the west was lucky: we had readymade gateways. We had books, paper, teachers, schools and libraries. But many in the world lack these luxuries. How do you practice without such tryout venues?

Books are divided into two classes, the books of the hour and the books of all time.

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

To describe my scarce leisure time in today’s terms, I always default to reading.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

Books! I dunno if I ever told you this, but books are the greatest gift one person can give another.

Millions of students now, in all the schools of America, are reading science fiction and especially, thank God, ‚The Martian Chronicles.‘

A capacity, and taste, for reading gives access to whatever has already been discovered by others.

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

In the dime stores and bus stations, people talk of situations, read books, repeat quotations, draw conclusions on the wall.

The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.

The cautious seldom err.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I’ve learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

Nature is not human hearted.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.

I never experiment with anything in my books. Experimentation means you don’t know what you’re doing.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

I was enjoying myself writing, because I don’t know what’s going to happen when I take a ride around that corner. You don’t know at all what you’re going to find there. That can be thrilling when you read a book, especially when you’re a kid and you’re reading stories.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

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 that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Mum had done everything you need to educate a kid. She made me a kid who likes books and she told me about ‚Wind in the Willows‘ and read it and I thought this is weird, Rat, Mole, Toad and my first ever Bolshie thought – you know about ‚The Wind in the Willows.‘

There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.

Victory is a fleeting thing in the gambling business. Today’s winners are tomorrow’s blinking toads, dumb beasts with no hope.

I don’t believe in ‚thinking‘ old. Although I’ve transitioned through many bodies – a baby, toddler, child, teen, young adult, mid-life and older adult – my spirit is unchanged. I support my body with exercise, my mind with reading and writing, and my spirit with the knowing that I am part of the Divine source of all life.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

Nothing in education is so astonishing as the amount of ignorance it accumulates in the form of inert facts.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Study men, not historians.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

Always forgive your enemies – nothing annoys them so much.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.