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

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

Be content to seem what you really are.

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

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

The biggest guru-mantra is: never share your secrets with anybody. It will destroy you.

The time comes upon every public man when it is best for him to keep his lips closed.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

I’ve never been shy or secretive with the fact that if you walk into my life, you may be walking onto a record.

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

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.

A person’s fears are lighter when the danger is at hand.

I’m totally myself.

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

If it’s going to come out eventually, better have it come out immediately.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

You’re not going to scare me into being somebody I don’t want to be.

The power of intuitive understanding will protect you from harm until the end of your days.

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

The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

I never wanted to look pretty on stage and sing about something we’ve all heard about before.

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

Deeply earnest and thoughtful people stand on shaky footing with the public.

The higher a man stands, the more the word vulgar becomes unintelligible to him.

The arrogance of age must submit to be taught by youth.

If the writing is honest it cannot be separated from the man who wrote it.

I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

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

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

Be as you wish to seem.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Songs are my diaries; they always have been. You have to put your trust in everyone because putting down those real, personal details and thoughts that make a song authentic also opens you right up. I am constantly misunderstood; a lot of people just don’t get me.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

When the whole world has their eyes on you, if you say something that doesn’t truly come from your spirit and your soul, or if you wear something that doesn’t come from your spirit and your soul, it’s an injustice to your position. And so, I’m really myself every single day and I do it because I know my fans would want me to.

The cautious seldom err.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

I know love is the answer.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.

I’m not a star. I don’t feel I’m so great. So how can I make you feel great just because you’ve got my signature on a piece of paper?

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

No one ever teaches well who wants to teach, or governs well who wants to govern.

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.

Avoid popularity if you would have peace.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

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

Never was anything great achieved without danger.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

I live halfway between reality and theater at all times. And I was born this way.