It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

Don’t go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you’ll land in trouble too big for you.

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.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Stay hungry, stay foolish.

Advice in old age is foolish; for what can be more absurd than to increase our provisions for the road the nearer we approach to our journey’s end.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

In this business, by the time you realize you’re in trouble, it’s too late to save yourself. Unless you’re running scared all the time, you’re gone.

War is evil, but it is often the lesser evil.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The mediation by the serpent was necessary. Evil can seduce man, but cannot become man.

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

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.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

As human beings we have the most extraordinary capacity for evil. We can perpetrate some of the most horrendous atrocities.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

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.

Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

Common sense is not so common.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

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

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

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

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

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

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

Judge a man by his questions rather than his answers.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

As we are, so we associate. The good, by affinity, seek the good; the vile, by affinity, the vile. Thus of their own volition, souls proceed into Heaven, into Hell.

Age doesn’t bother me. So many of my heroes were older guys. It’s the lack of years left that weighs far heavier on me than the age that I am.

What we become depends on what we read after all of the professors have finished with us. The greatest university of all is a collection of books.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

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

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

Be wary of the man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk.

Questions are never indiscreet, answers sometimes are.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond the winning.

It is a fact that cannot be denied: the wickedness of others becomes our own wickedness because it kindles something evil in our own hearts.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.