Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

Anyone who proposes to do good must not expect people to roll stones out of his way, but must accept his lot calmly, even if they roll a few stones upon it.

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.

The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and must therefore be treated with great caution.

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

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

When it all got taken away, I was becoming a young man. So I had to sacrifice to leave my family… Sleeping in my car, getting an apartment for a month and getting evicted the next month. Staying in the $25, $50 hotels.

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

We were poor, but we smiled.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

When you’re older you want to learn from other people.

Feeling sorry for ourselves is the most useless waste of energy on the planet. It does absolutely no good. We can’t let our circumstances or what others do or don’t do control us. We can decide to be happy regardless.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

I was willing to accept what I couldn’t change.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

If some years were added to my life, I would give fifty to the study of the Yi, and then I might come to be without great faults.

Nothing can resist the person who smiles at life – I don’t mean the ironic and disillusioned smile of my grandfather, but the triumphant smile of the person who knows that he will survive, or that at least he will be saved by what seems to be destroying him.

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

Your life is like a play with several acts. Some of the characters who enter have short roles to play, others, much larger. Some are villains and others are good guys. But all of them are necessary; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the play. Embrace them all, and move on to the next act.

You can’t have it all all at once. Over my lifespan, I think I have had it all, but in given periods in time, things were rough. And if you have a caring life partner, you help the other person when that person needs it.

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

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.

Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune, or temporary defeat.

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

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

I feel real good because it’s about representing the young world and how to uplift each other and how to push us to be greater and make sure we don’t fall or get trapped or get in trouble, you know what I mean. Stay focused, you know what I mean.

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

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

Do not rebuke mockers, or they will hate you; rebuke the wise, and they will love you.

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren’t enough to hold us steady when the challenges come… We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life’s hard times.

When things are going bad, there’s going to be some good that’s going to come from it.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

You have to accept whatever comes and the only important thing is that you meet it with courage and with the best that you have to give.

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

The ideas gained by men before they are twenty-five are practically the only ideas they shall have in their lives.

Mediocrity can talk, but it is for genius to observe.

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.

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

Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health.

The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.

You know, my Grandpop Finnegan used to have an expression: he used to say, ‚Joey, the guy in Olyphant’s out of work, it’s an economic slowdown. When your brother-in-law’s out of work, it’s a recession. When you’re out of work, it’s a depression.‘

Fill your bowl to the brim and it will spill. Keep sharpening your knife and it will blunt.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

No one can pass through life, any more than he can pass through a bit of country, without leaving tracks behind, and those tracks may often be helpful to those coming after him in finding their way.

He who has faith has… an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.

The life so short, the craft so long to learn.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

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

With patient and firm determination, I am going to press on for jobs. I’m going to press on for equality. I’m going to press on for the sake of our children. I’m going to press on for the sake of all those families who are struggling right now. I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. This is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Be willing to have it so. Acceptance of what has happened is the first step to overcoming the consequences of any misfortune.

I can understand how some people might resent me for having the audacity to continue playing music, but it’d take a lot more than that to stop me from doing it. I started Foo Fighters because I didn’t want to retreat.

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

Some old men, continually praise the time of their youth. In fact, you would almost think that there were no fools in their days, but unluckily they themselves are left as an example.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

In a universe that’s an intelligent system with a divine creative force supporting it, there simply can be no accidents. As tough as it is to acknowledge, you had to go through what you went through in order to get to where you are today, and the evidence is that you did.