All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

Poetry surrounds us everywhere, but putting it on paper is, alas, not so easy as looking at it.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

A man may be a fool and not know it, but not if he is married.

One of the good things about the way the Gulf War ended in 1991 is, you’d see the Vietnam veterans marching with the Gulf War veterans.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

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

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.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

Risk comes from not knowing what you’re doing.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

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!

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

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

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.

Hold those things that tell your history and protect them. During slavery, who was able to read or write or keep anything? The ability to have somebody to tell your story to is so important. It says: ‚I was here. I may be sold tomorrow. But you know I was here.‘

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

It cannot be said often enough that science fiction as a genre is incredibly educational – and I’m speaking the written science fiction, not ‚Star Trek.‘ Science fiction writers tend to fill their books if they’re clever with little bits of interesting stuff and real stuff.

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

When you’re older you want to learn from other people.

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.

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

Study men, not historians.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

I think I’ve got wiser.

New knowledge is the most valuable commodity on earth. The more truth we have to work with, the richer we become.

To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it.

We have the power to make this the best generation of mankind in the history of the world or to make it the last.

Old age: the crown of life, our play’s last act.

I specifically did not read other First Ladies‘ books, because I didn’t want to be influenced by how they defined the role. I knew that I would have to find this role – very uniquely and specifically to me and who I was.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

Then not only an old man, but also a drunkard, becomes a second time a child.

The less you know, the more you believe.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

I like to read books. I like to listen to music.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Probably the battle of Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton, but the opening battles of all subsequent wars have been lost there.

And when I was young, my family was perfectly nice. I write a lot about it, as you noticed. But it was rather limited. I think, I don’t think anyone in my family would really feel I’d done them an injustice by saying that. We didn’t see many people. There were many books. It was as if I wanted to get away from home.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

Those who weep for the happy periods which they encounter in history acknowledge what they want; not the alleviation but the silencing of misery.

The facts tell us that no religious Faith releases – or ever has released at any moment in History – a higher degree of warmth, a more intense dynamism of unification than the Christianity of our own day – and the more Catholic it is, the truer my words.

I have a big following among the biogeeks of this world. Nobody ever puts them in books.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Let him that is without stone among you cast the first thing he can lay his hands on.

Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.