Common sense is the genius of humanity.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

Genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains.

No one even knows one percent of the fabulous history of Man; but thanks to history, we know about occurrences that go beyond the limits of the imaginable.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Every production of genius must be the production of enthusiasm.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

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

We are not actually equal – humanity – if we are not allowed to freely love one another.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

A true man hates no one.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

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

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

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

We’re a blip in the existence of the universe, and we’re constantly trying to pull each other down. Not doing things to help each other.

Humanity at the centre of the primates, Homo sapiens, in humanity, is the end-product of a gradual work of creation, the successive sketches for which still surround us on every side.

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

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

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.

If we accept being talked to any kind of a way, then we are telling ourselves we are not quite worth the best. And if we have the effrontery to talk to anybody with less than courtesy, we tell ourselves and the world we are not very intelligent.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

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

Age doesn’t bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It’s the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am.

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: ‚If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?‘ But… the good Samaritan reversed the question: ‚If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?‘

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

These poems, with all their crudities, doubts, and confusions, are written for the love of Man and in praise of God, and I’d be a damn‘ fool if they weren’t.

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that’s the essence of inhumanity.

I’ll die a crazy old man!

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.

Nature is not human hearted.

I’ve never met a genius. A genius to me is someone who does well at something he hates. Anybody can do well at something he loves – it’s just a question of finding the subject.

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

I know love is the answer.

I got quite annoyed after the Haiti earthquake. A baby was taken from the wreckage and people said it was a miracle. It would have been a miracle had God stopped the earthquake. More wonderful was that a load of evolved monkeys got together to save the life of a child that wasn’t theirs.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.

There is no sin except stupidity.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

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