It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

A man watches his pear tree day after day, impatient for the ripening of the fruit. Let him attempt to force the process, and he may spoil both fruit and tree. But let him patiently wait, and the ripe pear at length falls into his lap.

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

Tricks and treachery are the practice of fools, that don’t have brains enough to be honest.

Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

Some people feel affronted when something they thought to be true doesn’t happen. If that’s the case, then your sense of risk is much higher, and that leads to risk aversion. You need to be able to be comfortable in uncertainty.

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.

The upward course of a nation’s history is due in the long run to the soundness of heart of its average men and women.

All knowledge or form conception is evoked through the medium of the eye, either in response to disturbances directly received on the retina or to their fainter secondary effects and reverberations. Other sense organs can only call forth feelings which have no reality of existence and of which no conception can be formed.

Experience teaches only the teachable.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

Sometimes the majority just means all the fools are on the same side.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn’t do anything to you, but since you aren’t wise, you need us who are old.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

Human beings must be known to be loved; but Divine beings must be loved to be known.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

What really matters is how God sees me. He isn’t concerned with labels; he is concerned about the state of man’s soul.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

Misfortune seldom intrudes upon the wise man; his greatest and highest interests are directed by reason throughout the course of life.

The outside perception and inside perception of Microsoft are so different. The view of Microsoft inside Microsoft is always kind of an underdog thing.

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

I can tell you, honest friend, what to believe: believe life; it teaches better that book or orator.

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.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

A fool is wise in his eyes.

No one but a fool is always right.

Things are more like they are now than they ever were before.

Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful. Good words are not persuasive; persuasive words are not good.

A person hears only what they understand.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that it will also make better soup.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

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.

Experience is the teacher of all things.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

As long as you live, keep learning how to live.

It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.

Anybody can be specific and obvious. That’s always been the easy way. It’s not that it’s so difficult to be unspecific and less obvious; it’s just that there’s nothing, absolutely nothing, to be specific and obvious about.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.