Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

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

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

The first of April is the day we remember what we are the other 364 days of the year.

Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

‚Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

A strong argument for the religion of Christ is this – that offences against Charity are about the only ones which men on their death-beds can be made – not to understand – but to feel – as crime.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

Knowledge is a polite word for dead but not buried imagination.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

Twice and thrice over, as they say, good is it to repeat and review what is good.

As you get older, the questions come down to about two or three. How long? And what do I do with the time I’ve got left?

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

It is a pleasant thing to reflect upon, and furnishes a complete answer to those who contend for the gradual degeneration of the human species, that every baby born into the world is a finer one than the last.

A tree’s a tree. How many more do you need to look at?

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

I am getting to the point where the only love worth being in is the love worth singing about.

To some extent I liken slavery to death.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

You don’t have the same mentality as you did five years ago – even one year. People are always changing, and I believe that everyone deserves the space to change and for people to recognize their change.

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself.

The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it.

Science is the father of knowledge, but opinion breeds ignorance.

Their mothers had finally caught up to them and been proven right. There were consequences after all but they were the consequences to things you didn’t even know you’d done.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

I love those who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‚Tis the business of little minds to shrink, but they whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves their conduct, will pursue their principles unto death.

All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full.

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

Every man’s memory is his private literature.

Nature is not human hearted.

Time is compressed like the fist I close on my knee… I hold inside it the clues and solutions and the power for what I must do now.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

As I approve of a youth that has something of the old man in him, so I am no less pleased with an old man that has something of the youth. He that follows this rule may be old in body, but can never be so in mind.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

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

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

His priority did not seem to be to teach them what he knew, but rather to impress upon them that nothing, not even… knowledge, was foolproof.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

I think there is a sense of being forced at this time to look at America’s really large shadow and that’s not all that bad.

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

At ev’ry word a reputation dies.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.

The more you stay in this kind of job, the more you realize that a public figure, a major public figure, is a lonely man.

We should all start to live before we get too old.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

God created man, but I could do better.