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

No one gets away with anything, ever, so take responsibility for your own life.

Success and failure are equally disastrous.

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

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

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

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.

All through Latin America, there’s sharp condemnation of the criminal atrocities of Sept. 11. But it’s qualified by the observation that although these are horrible atrocities, they are not unfamiliar.

I was out of my bed in one second, trembling with excitement, and I dashed to the door and into the adjoining room, where I could watch the streets below from the windows.

A lot of truth is said in jest.

I don’t go off and sit down and try to write material, because then it’s contrived and forced. I just live my life, and I see things in a word or a situation or a concept, and it will create a joke for me.

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

The reward of suffering is experience.

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

The object of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to shut it again on something solid.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

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.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge – that is everywhere.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

The truth is lived, not taught.

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

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

If you are first you are first. If you are second you are nothing.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

The eyes like sentinel occupy the highest place in the body.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

I have an expression I use as I’ve gone around the world through my career: ‚You never tell another man or woman what’s in their interest. They know their interest better than you know their interest.‘

A child wants things to be a certain way. When you get to be an adult, you just understand that some people are good, some are not, and you can’t be naive.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes.

Take things as they are. Punch when you have to punch. Kick when you have to kick.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

He is a hard man who is only just, and a sad one who is only wise.

Therefore if a man look sharply and attentively, he shall see Fortune; for though she be blind, yet she is not invisible.

Eternal principles that govern happiness apply equally to all.

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

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

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

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

Character is determined more by the lack of certain experiences than by those one has had.