Listen to many, speak to a few.

Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Why should we take advice on sex from the pope? If he knows anything about it, he shouldn’t!

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

Bad news isn’t wine. It doesn’t improve with age.

In the last analysis, what we are communicates far more eloquently than anything we say or do.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarreled. If one is not to get into a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?

Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.

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

No man can reveal to you nothing but that which already lies half-asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

When he to whom one speaks does not understand, and he who speaks himself does not understand, that is metaphysics.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Nobody’s ever said that pins are a tool of diplomacy.

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

Every time I plant a seed, He say kill it before it grow, he say kill it before they grow.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

If the Almighty were to rebuild the world and asked me for advice, I would have English Channels round every country. And the atmosphere would be such that anything which attempted to fly would be set on fire.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

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

The perfect love affair is one which is conducted entirely by post.

Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.

If you want to go somewhere, it is best to find someone who has already been there.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.

You’re never going to kill storytelling, because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.

The less you know, the more you believe.

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

A fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

My readers – and I get 400 emails for a day, my readers normally they say, well, you understand me, and I answer, you do understand me also. We are in the same level.

Always make those above you feel comfortably superior. In your desire to please or impress them, do not go too far in displaying your talents or you might accomplish the opposite – inspire fear and insecurity.

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.

The true genius shudders at incompleteness – and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.

The wisest have the most authority.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Listening has importance only when one is not projecting one’s own desires through which one listens.

He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander.

Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.

If you’re talking to a man who wouldn’t fight with you under any circumstances whatsoever, then you’re talking to someone for whom you have absolutely no respect.

Newspapers are the second hand of history. This hand, however, is usually not only of inferior metal to the other hands, it also seldom works properly.

A speech idiosyncrasy, in the same way as an air quote, is really justifiable only if it’s employed very sparingly and if the user consciously intends to be using it.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

It used to be the case, like you’d switch jobs, and then maybe you wouldn’t keep in touch with all the people that you knew from that old job, just because it was too hard. But one of the things that Facebook does is it makes it really easy to just stay in touch with all these people.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him, he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

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.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

I don’t do Shakespeare. I don’t talk in that kind of broken English.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.