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

When I came to Delhi and noticed an insider view, I felt what it was, and I was surprised to see it. It seemed as if dozens of separate governments are running at the same time in one main government. It appeared that everyone has its own fiefdom.

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

Genius… means little more than the faculty of perceiving in an unhabitual way.

A fool is wise in his eyes.

Almost everybody is born a genius and buried an idiot.

It’s amazing how confused and distracted and misdirected so many people are.

I know how fiction matters to me, because if I want to express myself, I have to make up a story. Some people call it imagination. To me, it’s not imagination. It’s just a way of watching.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

Education is the best friend. An educated person is respected everywhere. Education beats the beauty and the youth.

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood. All is riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.

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

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

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

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.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

The first forty years of life give us the text; the next thirty supply the commentary on it.

Meditation is to get insight, to get understanding and compassion, and when you have them, you are compelled to act.

There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

Man as an individual is a genius. But men in the mass form the headless monster, a great, brutish idiot that goes where prodded.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.

There is more of good nature than of good sense at the bottom of most marriages.

The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.

Chavez, who came out of the ranks of the Venezuelan Army, is methodical and tireless. I have observed him over the course of 17 years, since his first visit to Cuba. He is an extremely humanitarian and law-abiding person; he has never taken revenge on anybody.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

Let a man get up and say, Behold, this is the truth, and instantly I perceive a sandy cat filching a piece of fish in the background. Look, you have forgotten the cat, I say.

One Buddha is not enough; we need to have many Buddhas.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

He who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around!

It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.

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

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

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.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

It would be a terrific innovation if you could get your mind to stretch a little further than the next wisecrack.

Give thy thoughts no tongue.

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.

It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

I am persuaded, you will permit me to observe, that the path of true piety is so plain as to require but little political direction.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

If you wished to be loved, love.

Living is like tearing through a museum. Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering – because you can’t take it in all at once.

Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

Nothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain dealing.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

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.

Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.