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

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.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

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

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again.

The nobler a man, the harder it is for him to suspect inferiority in others.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

Purity of speech, of the mind, of the senses, and of a compassionate heart are needed by one who desires to rise to the divine platform.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.

There is only a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool.

I can promise you that when I go to Sacramento, I will pump up Sacramento.

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

I am rather inclined to silence.

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

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

Worldly faces never look so worldly as at a funeral. They have the same effect of grating incongruity as the sound of a coarse voice breaking the solemn silence of night.

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.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

The work an unknown good man has done is like a vein of water flowing hidden underground, secretly making the ground green.

I never smoke to excess – that is, I smoke in moderation, only one cigar at a time.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

The superior man is distressed by the limitations of his ability; he is not distressed by the fact that men do not recognize the ability that he has.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

I don’t look at a man who’s expert in one area as a specialist. I look at him as a rookie in ten other areas.

We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies to heal, and we don’t allow our minds and hearts to heal.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

In our time political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

If one oversteps the bounds of moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, ‚Oh, I forgot that bit,‘ then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you’ve figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid, one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

Here is the rule to remember in the future, When anything tempts you to be bitter: not, ‚This is a misfortune‘ but ‚To bear this worthily is good fortune.‘

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion.

From my earliest childhood, my attention was specially directed to the subject of acoustics, and specially to the subject of speech, and I was urged by my father to study everything relating to these subjects, as they would have an important bearing upon what was to be my professional work.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

It is his restraint that is honorable to a person, not their liberty.

Sports are such a great teacher. I think of everything they’ve taught me: camaraderie, humility, how to resolve differences.

It takes tremendous discipline to control the influence, the power you have over other people’s lives.