An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

An intellectual says a simple thing in a hard way. An artist says a hard thing in a simple way.

I like to speak on matters which matter to human beings, and almost everything matters to human beings.

Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character.

It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

I think some of my colleagues‘ spicier lines are distracting. They draw attention away from what the justice is trying to say.

Being a good listener is absolutely critical to being a good leader; you have to listen to the people who are on the front line.

The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.

Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.

People are very reluctant to talk about their private lives but then you go to the internet and they’re much more open.

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

Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge.

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

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Me is a common sense man. That mean when me explain things, me explain it in a very simple way; that mean if I explain it to a baby, the baby will understand too, you know.

Youth is wasted on the young.

If you ever go to a music session, you’ll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they’re reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

What I have never been afraid of is to be a little silly, and you can engage people that way. My view is, first you get them to laugh, then you get them to listen.

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

You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

I took the vow of celibacy in 1906. I had not shared my thoughts with my wife until then, but only consulted her at the time of making the vow. She had no objection.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he’s going to get sick on it.

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

Action speaks louder than words but not nearly as often.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

Money has a language of its own.

When I’m nervous, I stutter, and I had to keep stopping and starting.

It may be the part of a friend to rebuke a friend’s folly.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

I don’t like the intellectual label.

I don’t know how to work a room. It’s a real skill.

Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.

I’ve always wanted male friends that I could be real intimate with and talk about important things with and be as affectionate with that person as I would be with a girl.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

There is nothing which can better deserve your patronage, than the promotion of science and literature. Knowledge is in every country the surest basis of public happiness.

Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

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

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

The ‚free-floating intellectual‘ may occupy himself with problems because of their inherent interest and importance, perhaps to little effect.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.