An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow.

A witty saying proves nothing.

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

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

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

It is only when we forget all our learning that we begin to know.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Words may show a man’s wit but actions his meaning.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

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

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

You can make a board for all the goals you want in your life with the pictures on it, and that’s great, daydreaming is wonderful, but you can never plan your future.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

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

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

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

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

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

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.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

It’s hard for a player to plan for the future, especially in a game like football.

Time discovers truth.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

If you wished to be loved, love.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

The truth of things is the chief nutriment of superior intellects.

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.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

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

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

My mother said I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and more intelligent than college professors.

I have lived long enough both in years and in accomplishments.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.