It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

Silence is the mother of truth.

Men do not learn much from the lessons of history and that is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Methods of thought which claim to give the lead to our world in the name of revolution have become, in reality, ideologies of consent and not of rebellion.

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

Look at the world. There is no pure competitor to the United States of America.

Earnestness is enthusiasm tempered by reason.

A witty saying proves nothing.

Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.

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

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

Look not at what is contrary to propriety; listen not to what is contrary to propriety; speak not what is contrary to propriety; make no movement which is contrary to propriety.

How do you know what it’s like to be stupid if you’ve never been smart?

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

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

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

The first step, my son, which one makes in the world, is the one on which depends the rest of our days.

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

In words, as fashions, the same rule will hold; Alike fantastic, if too new, or old: Be not the first by whom the new are tried, Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

Next to knowing when to seize an opportunity, the most important thing in life is to know when to forego an advantage.

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.

Experience is the teacher of all things.

If time is not real, then the dividing line between this world and eternity, between suffering and bliss, between good and evil, is also an illusion.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

Nature is not human hearted.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

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

In a magazine, one can get – from cover to cover – 15 to 20 different ideas about life and how to live it.

To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‚Tis much better to do a little with certainty & leave the rest for others that come after you.

To be idle is a short road to death and to be diligent is a way of life; foolish people are idle, wise people are diligent.

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

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.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

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.

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought to waste none of them in reading valueless books.

Nothing is so wretched or foolish as to anticipate misfortunes. What madness is it to be expecting evil before it comes.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.

If we had more hell in the pulpit, we would have less hell in the pew.

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

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

If we choose, we can live in a world of comforting illusion.