Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

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

Death is a fearful thing.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I played a lot of tough clubs in my time. Once a guy in one of those clubs wanted to bet me $10 that I was dead. I was afraid to bet.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Bad food is made without pride, by cooks who have no pride, and no love. Bad food is made by chefs who are indifferent, or who are trying to be everything to everybody, who are trying to please everyone… Bad food is fake food… food that shows fear and lack of confidence in people’s ability to discern or to make decisions about their lives.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

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

If you’re in this business and you are scared, then you better do something else.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

Just what is it that academics have to fear if they stand up for common decency, instead of letting campus barbarians run amok?

Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.

The mind of America is seized by a fatal dry rot – and it’s only a question of time before all that the mind controls will run amuck in a frenzy of stupid, impotent fear.

Losers are people who are afraid of losing.

What one fool can understand, another can.

Experience teaches only the teachable.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

The only superstition I have is that I must start a new book on the same day that I finish the last one, even if it’s just a few notes in a file. I dread not having work in progress.

The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people.

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I’ve learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

If God is just, I tremble for my country.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

Whether you like it or not, you’re forced to come to the realisation that death is out there. But I don’t fear death, I’m a fatalist. I believe when it’s your time, that’s it. It’s the hand you’re dealt.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

Men feel that cruelty to the poor is a kind of cruelty to animals. They never feel that it is an injustice to equals; nay it is treachery to comrades.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

I’m not one of those guys that has a great worldview. I kind of deal with terror and fear and isolation and abandonment.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

Logically, harmony must come from the heart… Harmony very much based on trust. As soon as use force, creates fear. Fear and trust cannot go together.

Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

I recognize terror as the finest emotion and so I will try to terrorize the reader. But if I find that I cannot terrify, I will try to horrify, and if I find that I cannot horrify, I’ll go for the gross-out. I’m not proud.

They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

People have discovered that they can fool the devil; but they can’t fool the neighbors.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate’s loot on Treasure Island.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

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

Many Communist government officials have a rigid, dictatorial power, but they live in constant suspicion and fear of anything that might undermine the power they have.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

As I grow older, I pay less attention to what men say. I just watch what they do.

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.