I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

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

What humility does for one is it reminds us that there are people before me. I have already been paid for. And what I need to do is prepare myself so that I can pay for someone else who has yet to come but who may be here and needs me.

I always entertain the notion that I’m wrong, or that I’ll have to revise my opinion. Most of the time that feels good; sometimes it really hurts and is embarrassing.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

The finite is annihilated in the presence of the infinite, and becomes a pure nothing. So our spirit before God, so our justice before divine justice.

You learn from a conglomeration of the incredible past – whatever experience gotten in any way whatsoever.

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

It’s not an experiment if you know it’s going to work.

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.

When I did A Soldier’s Story, I was very young and green and thought I knew everything-now I know I know everything!

He that humbleth himself wishes to be exalted.

Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Man approaches the unattainable truth through a succession of errors.

Nothing exists from whose nature some effect does not follow.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

Doubt is the incentive to truth and inquiry leads the way.

I’m grateful to intelligent people. That doesn’t mean educated. That doesn’t mean intellectual. I mean really intelligent. What black old people used to call ‚mother wit‘ means intelligence that you had in your mother’s womb. That’s what you rely on. You know what’s right to do.

Heaven is long-enduring, and earth continues long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, themselves.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.

There is no birth of consciousness without pain.

There was something undifferentiated and yet complete, which existed before Heaven and Earth. Soundless and formless, it depends on nothing and does not change. It operates everywhere and is free from danger. It may be considered the mother of the universe. I do not know its name; I call it Tao.

There is no sin except stupidity.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

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

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

I believe in believing. My coach John Kavanagh is a big atheist, and he is always trying to persuade people to his way of thinking, and I think, ‚What a waste of energy.‘ If people want to believe in this god or that god, that’s fine by me; believe away. But I think we can be our own gods. I believe in myself.

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

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

All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.

What is the Tao Te Ching? Five hundred years before the birth of Jesus, a God-realized being named Lao-tzu in ancient China dictated 81 verses which are regarded by many as the ultimate commentary on the nature of existence.

The way of the Creative works through change and transformation, so that each thing receives its true nature and destiny and comes into permanent accord with the Great Harmony: this is what furthers and what perseveres.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

It is dangerous to be right in matters on which the established authorities are wrong.

Ultimately, education in its real sense is the pursuit of truth. It is an endless journey through knowledge and enlightenment.

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.

Noble deeds that are concealed are most esteemed.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

The object of the superior man is truth.

The call of death is a call of love. Death can be sweet if we answer it in the affirmative, if we accept it as one of the great eternal forms of life and transformation.

Have the humility to learn from those around you.

Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form.

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.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.

When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.

There is the good and the bad, the great and the low, the just and the unjust. I swear to you that all that will never change.

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right. Men will believe what they see.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

If you gain, you gain all. If you lose, you lose nothing. Wager then, without hesitation, that He exists.

You’ve got to reach a hand of friendship across the aisle and across philosophies in this country.