Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

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

I’ve taught a lot about prayer over the years and how it is really just talking to God.

Most of us have hoped and prayed for something to happen a certain way, but it didn’t. And when this happened, we had a choice to make: to react with offense toward God or to trust Him anyway.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Life levels all men. Death reveals the eminent.

He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

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

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.

An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.

We win justice quickest by rendering justice to the other party.

Old age is just a record of one’s whole life.

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.

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

Eating words has never given me indigestion.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.

When I am angry I can pray well and preach well.

I am 55 years old now. It takes three years to write one book. I don’t know how many books I will be able to write before I die. It is like a countdown. So with each book I am praying – please let me live until I am finished.

One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people’s throats – and one always secretes too much jelly.

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

He who seeks does not find, but he who does not seek will be found.

I am a most noteworthy sinner, but I have cried out to the Lord for grace and mercy, and they have covered me completely. I have found the sweetest consolation since I made it my whole purpose to enjoy His marvellous Presence.

When even one American – who has done nothing wrong – is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth – then all Americans are in peril.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.

A home without books is a body without soul.

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

Life without liberty is like a body without spirit.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

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

True prayer is neither a mere mental exercise nor a vocal performance. It is far deeper than that – it is spiritual transaction with the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

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.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

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

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

If you wished to be loved, love.

A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings, and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

Words are loaded pistols.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts, but if he will content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

No excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness.

Love sought is good, but given unsought, is better.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.