Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

Let’s just be smart this time. I’m looking for smart.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

No foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none.

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.

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

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

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

Patience is not simply the ability to wait – it’s how we behave while we’re waiting.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

How many a man has thrown up his hands at a time when a little more effort, a little more patience would have achieved success.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

When we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

My son complains about headaches. I tell him all the time, when you get out of bed, it’s feet first!

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

We were told our campaign wasn’t sufficiently slick. We regard that as a compliment.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

I think you can judge from somebody’s actions a kind of a stability and sense of purpose perhaps created by strong religious roots. I mean, there’s a certain patience, a certain discipline, I think, that religion helps you achieve.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

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

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

The less you know, the more you believe.

God always has patience.

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

I had been playing for a while, and I asked Louisville Slugger to send me a dozen flame treated bats. But when I got it, I realized they had sent me a box of ashes.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

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 have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

I wish I could give you a lot of advice, based on my experience of winning political debates. But I don’t have that experience. My only experience is at losing them.

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

It is a fine game to play – the game of politics – and it is well worth waiting for a good hand before really plunging.