It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Govern a great nation as you would cook a small fish. Do not overdo it.

In the end, people are persuaded not by what we say, but by what they understand.

Before I speak, I have something important to say.

I sent one e-mail in my life. I sent it to Jeff Raikes at Microsoft, and it ended up in court in Minneapolis, so I am one for one.

Necessity never made a good bargain.

Understanding is a two-way street.

You can have no dominion greater or less than that over yourself.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

Lying is not only saying what isn’t true. It is also, in fact especially, saying more than is true and, in the case of the human heart, saying more than one feels. We all do it, every day, to make life simpler.

Proselytism is solemn nonsense; it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.

Well I have a microphone and you don’t so you will listen to every damn word I have to say!

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

One thing that I tell people all the time is, ‚I’m not going to answer a call from you after nine o’clock at night or before nine o’clock in the morning unless it’s an emergency.‘

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I’ve learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into someone’s eyes.

You have to be careful about how much you reveal to people that look up to you so much.

It is in this power of saying everything, and yet saying nothing too plainly, that the perfection of art consists.

When I’m nervous, I stutter, and I had to keep stopping and starting.

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter.

‚Tis education forms the common mind; just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

When I was in college I did a lot of stupid things and I don’t want to make an excuse for that. Some of the things that people accuse me of are true, some of them aren’t. There are pranks, IMs.

You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

If you do not understand a man you cannot crush him. And if you do understand him, very probably you will not.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

There are some people, you know, they think the way to be a big man is to shout and stomp and raise hell-and then nothing ever really happens. I’m not like that I never shoot blanks.

A gem cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials.

If you want what you’re saying heard, then take your time and say it so that the listener will actually hear it. You might save somebody’s life. Your own, first.

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.

In a certain way, it’s the sound of the words, the inflection and the way the song is sung and the way it fits the melody and the way the syllables are on the tongue that has as much of the meaning as the actual, literal words.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

I try to speak plainly so that my constituents who don’t follow the nuances of government like I do, because they’re too busy earning a real living, can understand the issues before me. None of this stuff is brain surgery.

The Internet has compromised the quality of debate.

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

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Surely wisdom will come as we listen to learn from children, parents, partners, neighbors, Church leaders, and the Lord.

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

Words do two major things: They provide food for the mind and create light for understanding and awareness.

Any man is liable to err, only a fool persists in error.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all.

Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to trust your team. It’s a lesson I’ve had to relearn quite a few times.

He that will believe only what he can fully comprehend must have a long head or a very short creed.

Lord keep us all from sin. Teach us how to walk circumspectly; enable us to guard our minds against error of doctrine, our hearts against wrong feelings, and our lives against evil actions.

The PC has improved the world in just about every area you can think of. Amazing developments in communications, collaboration and efficiencies. New kinds of entertainment and social media. Access to information and the ability to give a voice people who would never have been heard.

Write in such a way as that you can be readily understood by both the young and the old, by men as well as women, even by children.

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.

If you wished to be loved, love.

Old age, believe me, is a good and pleasant thing. It is true you are gently shouldered off the stage, but then you are given such a comfortable front stall as spectator.

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

People may hear your words, but they feel your attitude.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘