The more you know the less you need to say.

Don’t spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

We should be too big to take offense and too noble to give it.

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

I like the way the stories of my relationships sound to music more than the way they look in print, in gossip columns or in me talking about them in interviews. I think it’s a better way of telling the stories.

I just want people to be the best thems and live the happiest lives possible.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

No evil dooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in, and make no effort to escape from.

Counsel with your parents is a privilege at any age.

I write all of my own speeches.

No architecture is so haughty as that which is simple.

In honorable dealing you should consider what you intended, not what you said or thought.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

When I talked to him on the phone yesterday. I called him George rather than Mr. Vice President. But, in public, it’s Mr. Vice President, because that is who he is.

Disciplining yourself to do what you know is right and important, although difficult, is the highroad to pride, self-esteem, and personal satisfaction.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Forty to 60 I would say is your prime. That’s when you know the most, you’ve seen the most, you understand the most, and you still have some physical energy.

Your timeless self does not age and has no fear of the future. Contemplate your physical self and all its possessions, and practice laughing peacefully at it all.

You will always have partial points of view, and you’ll always have the story behind the story that hasn’t come out yet. And any form of journalism you’re involved with is going to be up against a biased viewpoint and partial knowledge.

The bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, With loads of learned lumber in his head.

Humans cannot avoid trying to influence others. Everything we say or do is examined and interpreted by others for clues as to our intentions.

All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.

You can be obsessed with the bad things people say and the good things; either way, you’re obsessed with yourself, and I’m not – you can become unhinged so easily.

If you try to protect yourself from pain, it becomes a stone in your heart. But the more you learn to face things, the more likely that stone can become a pearl.

Everybody wants to be somebody; nobody wants to grow.

If you’re put on a pedestal, you’re supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.

Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.

Success is steady progress toward one’s personal goals.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

The relationship to one’s fellow man is the relationship of prayer, the relationship to oneself is the relationship of striving; it is from prayer that one draws the strength for one’s striving.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

It is better to do one’s own duty, however defective it may be, than to follow the duty of another, however well one may perform it. He who does his duty as his own nature reveals it, never sins.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Yes, I, well, when I write, as often as I can, I try to write as if I’m talking to people. It doesn’t always work, and one shouldn’t always try it, but I try and write as if I am talking, and trying to engage the reader in conversation.

Whenever a husband and wife begin to discuss their marriage they are giving evidence at a coroner’s inquest.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can.

We should seek the greatest value of our action.

The men I idolized built their bodies and became somebody – like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger – and I thought, ‚That can be me.‘ So I started working out. The funny thing is I didn’t realize back then that I was having a defining moment.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

There are people in the world who have skills and strength and talent that I will never have. Never. These notions that you can ‚be whatever you want to be as long as you want it bad enough‘ are not true. They are fairy tales.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

Most people already know what they’re doing wrong. When I get them to church I want to tell them that you can change.

There is no sin except stupidity.

To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.

Think of yourself as on the threshold of unparalleled success. A whole, clear, glorious life lies before you. Achieve! Achieve!

I’m super self-critical, which I think is good, because then I get exactly what I want. I’m critical of other people, too – I try not to be, though.

Ignorance, the root and stem of all evil.

When I did A Soldier’s Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!

To err is human; to forgive, divine.

We cannot change anything until we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

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

Set up a situation that presents you with something slightly beyond your reach.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.

The Tao teaches us to let go of things. Use the 80/20 rule. If you take all your clothes, you’ll find out that you only wear 20 percent of them. Take what you have and don’t use and circulate it. Give stuff to people who truly need it. After all, we come into this world with nothing; we leave this world with nothing.

There may sometimes be ungenerous attempts to keep a young man down; and they will succeed, too, if he allows his mind to be diverted from its true channel to brood over the attempted injury.

Let the refining and improving of your own life keep you so busy that you have little time to criticize others.