Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

The teacher is the one who gets the most out of the lessons, and the true teacher is the learner.

The ideas I stand for are not mine. I borrowed them from Socrates. I swiped them from Chesterfield. I stole them from Jesus. And I put them in a book. If you don’t like their rules, whose would you use?

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

Older and wiser voices can help you find the right path, if you are only willing to listen.

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.

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

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

If one way be better than another, that you may be sure is nature’s way.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

Where ignorance is our master, there is no possibility of real peace.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

There is no such thing as Something for nothing.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

He who looks the higher is the more highly distinguished, and turning over the great book of nature (which is the proper object of philosophy) is the way to elevate one’s gaze.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Truth emerges more readily from error than from confusion.

The wise use of your freedom to make your own decisions is crucial to your spiritual growth, now and for eternity.

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

Ask an older person you respect to tell you his or her greatest regret.

How incessant and great are the ills with which a prolonged old age is replete.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

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

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

I’m so old, I don’t buy green bananas any more.

He who is of calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age, but to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden.

I don’t have this feeling that 70 is really old.

He who despairs of the human condition is a coward, but he who has hope for it is a fool.

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

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

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

It is the sign of a great mind to dislike greatness, and to prefer things in measure to things in excess.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

Lord, Lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual.

He who does not trust enough, Will not be trusted.

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

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

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

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

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

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

Scripture is filled with examples of men and women whom God used late in life, often with great impact – men and women who refused to use old age as an excuse to ignore what God wanted them to do.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

You live and learn. At any rate, you live.