A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

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

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

When we are born we cry that we are come to this great stage of fools.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

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

My father was grounded, a very meat-and-potatoes man. He was a baker.

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.

I consider wisdom supernatural because it isn’t taught by men – it’s a gift from God.

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

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

Nature is not human hearted.

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

At fifty everyone has the face he deserves.

Temptation is a woman’s weapon and man’s excuse.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

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

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

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.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

Many foxes grow gray but few grow good.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

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

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Man can hardly even recognize the devils of his own creation.

An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Show me the man you honor, and I will know what kind of man you are.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

As long as the people don’t fear the truth, there is hope. For once they fear it, the one who tells it doesn’t stand a chance. And today, truth is still beautiful… but so frightening.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.