It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.

He who knows best knows how little he knows.

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

It is the strange fate of man, that even in the greatest of evils the fear of the worst continues to haunt him.

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

A lie cannot live.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death.

It’s important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it’s been possible, and that window could be open for a long time – hopefully it is – or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: ‚War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.‘

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

Information is not knowledge.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

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.

Some people have a difficult time facing truth and reality. They prefer to live in a make-believe world, pretending that certain things aren’t happening.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.

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

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

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

A lot of truth is said in jest.

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.

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 foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

Necessity dispenseth with decorum.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

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

Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

Good is positive. Evil is merely privative, not absolute: it is like cold, which is the privation of heat. All evil is so much death or nonentity. Benevolence is absolute and real. So much benevolence as a man hath, so much life hath he.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Let us not listen to those who think we ought to be angry with our enemies, and who believe this to be great and manly. Nothing is so praiseworthy, nothing so clearly shows a great and noble soul, as clemency and readiness to forgive.

Knowledge slowly builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

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

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

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Who has fully realized that history is not contained in thick books but lives in our very blood?

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

In South Korea, they believe that when you turn 60, you’ve become a baby again and the rest of your life should be totally about joy and happiness, and people should leave you alone, and I just think that that’s the height of intelligence.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

That is never too often repeated, which is never sufficiently learned.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies for their intellects. A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies.