A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

I was a chemistry major, but I’m always winding up as a teacher in English departments, so I’ve brought scientific thinking to literature. There’s been very little gratitude for this.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

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

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

Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds.

The poetry you read has been written for you, each of you – black, white, Hispanic, man, woman, gay, straight.

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

There are certain pursuits which, if not wholly poetic and true, do at least suggest a nobler and finer relation to nature than we know. The keeping of bees, for instance.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

The art of being a slave is to rule one’s master.

It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under other circumstances.

To free a person from error is to give, and not to take away.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.

Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

Who shall measure the hat and violence of the poet’s heart when caught and tangled in a woman’s body?

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

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

Excessive literary production is a social offense.

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

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

The only real valuable thing is intuition.

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

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

How well he’s read, to reason against reading!

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

A book worth reading is worth buying.

It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.

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

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

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

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

We are wiser than we know.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

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