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.

We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

Thought can be so seductive and hypnotic that it absorbs your attention totally, so you become your thoughts.

Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.

To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education. To accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun. To accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete.

I knew I was a winner back in the late sixties. I knew I was destined for great things. People will say that kind of thinking is totally immodest. I agree. Modesty is not a word that applies to me in any way – I hope it never will.

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

I am not a self-help writer. I am a self-problem writer. When people read my books, I provoke some things. I cannot justify my work. I do my work; it is up to them to classify it, to judge.

I never thought I’d land in pictures with a face like mine.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Accept everything about yourself – I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end – no apologies, no regrets.

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing.

The wise are wise only because they love. The fool are fools only because they think they can understand love.

Beauty is not caused. It is.

If you’re in a workplace you don’t like right now, be encouraged because God will use it for your good. Think about it this way: He wants you to be a light in the darkness – and He’s putting His confidence in you!

Everyone now knows how to find the meaning of life within himself. But mankind wasn’t always so lucky. Less than a century ago, men and women did not have easy access to the puzzle boxes within them.

Whosoever is delighted in solitude is either a wild beast or a god.

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

You have to feel confident. If you don’t, then you’re going to be hesitant and defensive, and there’ll be a lot of things working against you.

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

The foolish man conceives the idea of ‚self.‘ The wise man sees there is no ground on which to build the idea of ‚self;‘ thus, he has a right conception of the world and well concludes that all compounds amassed by sorrow will be dissolved again, but the truth will remain.

I had a C-section, and I found it fascinating. I didn’t find it a sacrifice, and I didn’t find it a painful experience. I found it a fascinating miracle of what a body can do.

Instead of blaming everyone and everything else for your problems, pray for God to help you take an inventory of what’s been on your mind so you can think about what you’ve been thinking about.

If I had only one sermon to preach it would be a sermon against pride.

We have an epidemic of insecure people in our society today.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

Age appears to be best in four things; old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.

Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy.

What women need to understand is that men don’t communicate. It’s not intentional or on purpose. We’re just not as emotional. You ladies feel like you have to express yourselves.

Flying might not be all plain sailing, but the fun of it is worth the price.

The darkness is really out there. It’s not something that’s in my head, just. It’s in my work because it’s in the world.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

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.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

It is plain indeed that in spite of later estrangement Hobbits are relatives of ours: far nearer to us than Elves, or even than Dwarves. Of old they spoke the languages of Men, after their own fashion, and liked and disliked much the same things as Men did. But what exactly our relationship is can no longer be discovered.

Knowledge is true opinion.

A good essay must have this permanent quality about it; it must draw its curtain round us, but it must be a curtain that shuts us in not out.

I want to – more than anything – to create a moment that people will never forget. Not for me, but for themselves. That’s what I remember about great Super Bowl performances in the past, when you really get lost in the moment with your family.

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

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

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.

In memory everything seems to happen to music.

Our care should not be to have lived long as to have lived enough.

People who have given us their complete confidence believe that they have a right to ours. The inference is false, a gift confers no rights.

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

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

You say that you are my judge; I do not know if you are; but take good heed not to judge me ill, because you would put yourself in great peril.

The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

So when I speak in front of thousands, tens of thousands of people, I don’t really get nervous because I know what I want to say and I know what message I want to give.

Women have no sympathy and my experience of women is almost as large as Europe.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

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

Necessity dispenseth with decorum.

I think that once you’ve had a few No. 1s in your career that you’ve kind of proven yourself, and I don’t feel the need to prove anything anymore.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.