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.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

How to drive a guy crazy: send him a telegram and on the top put ‚page 2.‘

To learn something but not to do is really not to learn. To know something but not to do is really not to know.

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

The idea is to write it so that people hear it and it slides through the brain and goes straight to the heart.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

A letter does not blush.

A fundamentalist can’t bring himself or herself to negotiate with people who disagree with them because the negotiating process itself is an indication of implied equality.

Now is the winter of our discontent.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

No matter what message you are about to deliver somewhere, whether it is holding out a hand of friendship, or making clear that you disapprove of something, is the fact that the person sitting across the table is a human being, so the goal is to always establish common ground.

We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New, but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.

Light troubles speak; the weighty are struck dumb.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Animation can explain whatever the mind of man can conceive. This facility makes it the most versatile and explicit means of communication yet devised for quick mass appreciation.

It is not, of course, complete yet – but some sentences were understood this afternoon… I feel that I have at last struck the solution of a great problem – and the day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid onto houses just like water or gas – and friends converse with each other without leaving home.

The excessive increase of anything causes a reaction in the opposite direction.

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

I write all my sermons.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

The only way I hear gossip is if it’s big enough and loud enough for my friends to bring it up to me. Or if it’s, like, a big untrue ordeal from my publicist – and she hates making that phone call!

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

When we launched a new company, I reviewed the ads and marketing materials and asked those presenting the campaign to read everything aloud to test the phrasing and concept. If I could grasp it quickly, then it passed with muster. We would get our message across only if it was understandable at first glance.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

I’m terrified of losing my voice.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

If my critics saw me walking over the Thames they would say it was because I couldn’t swim.

The man who has no imagination has no wings.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

Please don’t ask me to do that which I’ve just said I’m not going to do, because you’re burning up time. The meter is running through the sand on you, and I am now filibustering.

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

Never contract friendship with a man that is not better than thyself.

To me, constructive criticism is when people take ownership of their ideas. That’s why I don’t listen to anything that’s anonymous. But it’s hard; when there’s something hurtful out there, I still want to read it over and over and memorize it and explain my point of view to the person.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

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

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

Take time for all things: great haste makes great waste.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

I particularly like Twitter, because it’s short and can be very funny and informative. It’s a little bit like having your own radio program.

No one should be ashamed to admit he is wrong, which is but saying, in other words, that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men’s writings, so that you shall gain easily what others have labored hard for.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

When you’re drowning, you don’t say ‚I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,‘ you just scream.

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.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The higher the sun ariseth, the less shadow doth he cast; even so the greater is the goodness, the less doth it covet praise; yet cannot avoid its rewards in honours.

If I have the chance to say something, I will say it – but that doesn’t obligate me to always say something, or to shed light on every problem, as if I were a lawmaker.

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

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.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

Kids are watching us. I experience it every single day. They hang on my every word, what I wear, what I say.

In this experiment, made on the 9th of October, 1876, actual conversation, backwards and forwards, upon the same line, and by the same instruments reciprocally used, was successfully carried on for the first time upon a real line of miles in length.

Better three hours too soon than a minute too late.