Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.

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

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

A lie cannot live.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.

To have no time for philosophy is to be a true philosopher.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

A woman uses her intelligence to find reasons to support her intuition.

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

It must be the Brit in me, because I like animals.

Common sense is not so common.

Do not ask for what you will wish you had not got.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice.

I prefer tongue-tied knowledge to ignorant loquacity.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

Genius may have its limitations, but stupidity is not thus handicapped.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

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.

He that would live in peace and at ease must not speak all he knows or all he sees.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

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

I think I am smart unless I am really, really in love, and then I am ridiculously stupid.

In any court-like environment of power, you will inevitably find people who are drawn to those who are successful or powerful, not out of admiration, but out of secret envy.

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

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

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

Wisdom begins in wonder.

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

The spiritual is the parent of the practical.

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

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

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

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

As social animals, we are extremely susceptible to the moods of other people. This gives us the power to subtly infuse into people the appropriate mood for influencing them.

We have to live today by what truth we can get today and be ready tomorrow to call it falsehood.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

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

When a man fell into his anecdotage it was a sign for him to retire from the world.

It is a big temptation to me, when I create a character for a novel, to say that he is what he is because of faulty wiring, or because of microscopic amounts of chemicals which he ate or failed to eat on that particular day.

I’m too busy acting like I’m not Naive. I’ve seen it all, I was here first.

People say maybe we have a soul and chimpanzees don’t. I feel that it’s quite possible that if we have souls, chimpanzees have souls as well.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

The computer brings out the worst in some people.

Is the babe young? When I behold it, it seems more venerable than the oldest man.

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

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

As the biggest library if it is in disorder is not as useful as a small but well-arranged one, so you may accumulate a vast amount of knowledge but it will be of far less value than a much smaller amount if you have not thought it over for yourself.

Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.

I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously.

Educate the masses, elevate their standard of intelligence, and you will certainly have a successful nation.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

God gave you a brain. Do the best you can with it. And you don’t have to be Einstein, but Einstein was mentally tough. He believed what he believed. And he worked out things. And he argued with people who disagreed with him. But I’m sure he didn’t call everybody jerks.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.