Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

There is no victory at bargain basement prices.

It was a favorite expression of Theophrastus that time was the most valuable thing that a man could spend.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

To act is to be committed, and to be committed is to be in danger.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Character is destiny.

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

I have hardly ever known a mathematician who was capable of reasoning.

Everything passes. Nobody gets anything for keeps. And that’s how we’ve got to live.

Man is not born to atheism. He is born to believe.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

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.

The proper study of mankind is books.

The future is something which everyone reaches at the rate of 60 minutes an hour, whatever he does, whoever he is.

What is earnest is not always true; on the contrary, error is often more earnest than truth.

Death is a commingling of eternity with time; in the death of a good man, eternity is seen looking through time.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.

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

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.

Our inquiring friends and neighbors not of our faith can also catch the wave. We encourage them to keep all that is good and true in their lives. And we invite them to receive more, especially the glorious truth that through God’s eternal plan, families can be together forever.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist.

Is man one of God’s blunders? Or is God one of man’s blunders?

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

Illusion is the first of all pleasures.

A physician is not angry at the intemperance of a mad patient, nor does he take it ill to be railed at by a man in fever. Just so should a wise man treat all mankind, as a physician does his patient, and look upon them only as sick and extravagant.

Genius without education is like silver in the mine.

Man – a being in search of meaning.

Make yourself necessary to somebody.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

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.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

I really believe in the philosophy that you create your own universe. I’m just trying to create a good one for myself.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Who would set a limit to the mind of man? Who would dare assert that we know all there is to be known?

Philosophy: Unintelligible answers to insoluble problems.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

The modern mind is in complete disarray. Knowledge has stretched itself to the point where neither the world nor our intelligence can find any foot-hold. It is a fact that we are suffering from nihilism.

I don’t believe in an outside agent that creates the world, then walks away. But I feel very strongly there is an intelligence at work in every flower, in every blade of grass, in every cell of my body. And it is that intelligence that, I wouldn’t say created the universe. It is creating the universe. It’s an ongoing process.

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.

The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane.

I am no longer sure of anything. If I satiate my desires, I sin but I deliver myself from them; if I refuse to satisfy them, they infect the whole soul.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Nature puts no question and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

Isn’t it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.

Non-violence is the article of faith.

Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have proceeded from the unmarried, or childless men.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

The revelation of thought takes men out of servitude into freedom.

Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today.