A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.

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

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

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.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

France has more need of me than I have need of France.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

Time discovers truth.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Truth is always in harmony with herself, and is not concerned chiefly to reveal the justice that may consist with wrong-doing.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

I was bold in the pursuit of knowledge, never fearing to follow truth and reason to whatever results they led, and bearding every authority which stood in their way.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

Judgments, value judgments concerning life, for or against, can in the last resort never be true: they possess value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms – in themselves such judgments are stupidities.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

The passive aggressive arguer comes armed with tricky tactics. They cannot take the risk that they might be wrong: their self-esteem is too intertwined with their opinions. It is more important to affirm their rightness, and sense of superiority, than to arrive at the truth.

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

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.

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

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

That old law about ‚an eye for an eye‘ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.

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

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

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.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

Change alone is unchanging.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

The truth is, I have absolutely no professional credentials – literally, which is why I’m teaching at MIT.

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

I have never entered into any controversy in defense of my philosophical opinions; I leave them to take their chance in the world. If they are right, truth and experience will support them; if wrong, they ought to be refuted and rejected. Disputes are apt to sour one’s temper and disturb one’s quiet.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.

Dispassionate objectivity is itself a passion, for the real and for the truth.

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

Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or to coerce people along any particular path. If you first understand that, then you will see how impossible it is to organize a belief.

Platitudes? Yes, there are platitudes. Platitudes are there because they are true.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

My lectures, based on Islamic teachings, were on various subjects. Some of the titles were, ‚The Intoxication of Life,‘ ‚The Purpose of Life,‘ ‚The Real Cause of Man’s Distress,‘ ‚The Journey to the Goal in Life,‘ and, one of my favorites, ‚The Heart of Man.‘ They contained important insights that spoke to something deep inside me.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.