Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

It is good to express a thing twice right at the outset and so to give it a right foot and also a left one. Truth can surely stand on one leg, but with two it will be able to walk and get around.

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

The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual’s own reason and critical analysis.

But by reading them again and again finally I was able to grasp the essential part. What emotion, enthusiasm, enlightenment and confidence they communicated to me! I wept for joy.

Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

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.

Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

The fox has many tricks. The hedgehog has but one. But that is the best of all.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

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

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

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.

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

Control and surrender have to be kept in balance. That’s what surfers do – take control of the situation, then be carried, then take control. In the last few thousand years, we’ve become incredibly adept technically. We’ve treasured the controlling part of ourselves and neglected the surrendering part.

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.

If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

One can survive everything, nowadays, except death, and live down everything except a good reputation.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

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.

A wise woman wishes to be no one’s enemy; a wise woman refuses to be anyone’s victim.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

Young love is wild and outrageous, laughing at moderation and blinding us to common sense.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

Teach us that wealth is not elegance, that profusion is not magnificence, that splendor is not beauty.

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

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.

Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment.

I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman’s skillet and the man’s ax-helve.

A witty saying proves nothing.

I am like a man so busy in letting rooms in one end of his house, that he can’t stop to put out the fire that is burning the other.

Toleration is the greatest gift of the mind; it requires the same effort of the brain that it takes to balance oneself on a bicycle.

The cautious seldom err.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

I know of no single formula for success. But over the years I have observed that some attributes of leadership are universal and are often about finding ways of encouraging people to combine their efforts, their talents, their insights, their enthusiasm and their inspiration to work together.

He that hath knowledge spareth his words.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.

The person who has lived the most is not the one with the most years but the one with the richest experiences.

If you love something – and there are things that I love – you do want more and more and more of it, but that’s not the way to produce good work.

To recruit staff, I traveled all over the country talking with people who had been working on one or another aspect of the atomic-energy enterprise and people in radar work, for example, and underwater sound, telling them about the job, the place that we are going to, and enlisting their enthusiasm.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

Age is an issue of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.