Half a truth is often a great lie.

If a man does his best, what else is there?

Truth cannot be brought down; rather, the individual must make the effort to ascend to it. You cannot bring the mountaintop to the valley. If you would attain to the mountaintop, you must pass through the valley, climb the steeps, unafraid of the dangerous precipices.

It is hard to believe that a man is telling the truth when you know that you would lie if you were in his place.

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

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Of course it’s the same old story. Truth usually is the same old story.

Purity is the feminine, truth the masculine of honor.

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

The liar’s punishment is not in the least that he is not believed, but that he cannot believe anyone else.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

A professor must have a theory as a dog must have fleas.

Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school.

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

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

Governments are supposed to lie to their citizens.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true.

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

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

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

We never fully grasp the import of any true statement until we have a clear notion of what the opposite untrue statement would be.

Something unpleasant is coming when men are anxious to tell the truth.

No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

When befriended, remember it; when you befriend, forget it.

One truth stands firm. All that happens in world history rests on something spiritual. If the spiritual is strong, it creates world history. If it is weak, it suffers world history.

He who loves 50 people has 50 woes; he who loves no one has no woes.

I am a humble but very earnest seeker after truth.

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

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

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

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

A learned blockhead is a greater blockhead than an ignorant one.

The voice of the people has been said to be the voice of God; and, however generally this maxim has been quoted and believed, it is not true to fact. The people are turbulent and changing, they seldom judge or determine right.

Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.

I want to be a man who is truthful and who won’t let pride get in the way of my ripping myself open to my partner and saying, ‚Here I am. This is me.‘ I feel there’s something powerful when a man reaches a point in his life when he can be completely vulnerable.

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

You don’t tell deliberate lies, but sometimes you have to be evasive.

One thing about me is I try to be honest.

The surest way to remain poor is to be an honest man.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

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

The most interesting information comes from children, for they tell all they know and then stop.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

I have been a professor, and I have been a policymaker, and as a professor, you think in terms of truth or absolutes.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.