Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

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

For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.

Electrical science has revealed to us the true nature of light, has provided us with innumerable appliances and instruments of precision, and has thereby vastly added to the exactness of our knowledge.

Only the educated are free.

The cautious seldom err.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

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

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

Science has explained nothing; the more we know the more fantastic the world becomes and the profounder the surrounding darkness.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

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

In the practice of tolerance, one’s enemy is the best teacher.

We are braver and wiser because they existed, those strong women and strong men… We are who we are because they were who they were. It’s wise to know where you come from, who called your name.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

In those days he was wiser than he is now; he used to frequently take my advice.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

Experience without theory is blind, but theory without experience is mere intellectual play.

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

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

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

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Shun no toil to make yourself remarkable by some talent or other; yet do not devote yourself to one branch exclusively. Strive to get clear notions about all. Give up no science entirely; for science is but one.

For my part I know nothing with any certainty, but the sight of the stars makes me dream.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge doing. I am content with knowing, if only I could know.

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

He who hath many friends hath none.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

They know enough who know how to learn.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

To penetrate and dissipate these clouds of darkness, the general mind must be strengthened by education.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

Let’s not burn the universities yet. After all, the damage they do might be worse.

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.

As a general rule, the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information.

To know yet to think that one does not know is best; Not to know yet to think that one knows will lead to difficulty.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

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

Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.