Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

Philosophy is the highest music.

No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.

Better a little which is well done, than a great deal imperfectly.

The fact is that a man who wants to act virtuously in every way necessarily comes to grief among so many who are not virtuous.

The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.

Blushing is the color of virtue.

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

The natural desire of good men is knowledge.

Hatreds not vowed and concealed are to be feared more than those openly declared.

Experience is the teacher of all things.

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.

I was in my thirteenth year when I heard a voice from God to help me govern my conduct. And the first time I was very much afraid.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can’t smile, grin. If you can’t grin, keep out of the way till you can.

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.

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

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

At eighteen our convictions are hills from which we look; at forty-five they are caves in which we hide.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

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

If you wished to be loved, love.

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

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

A man is the whole encyclopedia of facts.

I grow daily to honour facts more and more, and theory less and less. A fact, it seems to me, is a great thing; a sentence printed, if not by God, then at least by the Devil.

Modesty is the color of virtue.

The greatest sweetener of human life is Friendship. To raise this to the highest pitch of enjoyment, is a secret which but few discover.

The opportunity for doing mischief is found a hundred times a day, and of doing good once in a year.

Rashness belongs to youth; prudence to old age.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

Whilst shame keeps its watch, virtue is not wholly extinguished in the heart; nor will moderation be utterly exiled from the minds of tyrants.

The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

First and last, what is demanded of genius is love of truth.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

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

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

I know love is the answer.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

There is no substitute for talent. Industry and all its virtues are of no avail.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

As far as I’m concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight… the truly wise person is colorblind.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

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

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.