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

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper.

Once writing has become your major vice and greatest pleasure, only death can stop it.

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

No man was ever wise by chance.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

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.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

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

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

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

The alchemists in their search for gold discovered many other things of greater value.

Whatever is well said by another, is mine.

Having nothing, nothing can he lose.

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

I think there is only one quality worse than hardness of heart and that is softness of head.

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

It is the nature of every person to error, but only the fool perseveres in error.

To read without reflecting is like eating without digesting.

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

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

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

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

One should take good care not to grow too wise for so great a pleasure of life as laughter.

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

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.

It is a wise father that knows his own child.

I often joke that 100 years from now I hope people are saying, ‚Dang, she looks good for her age!‘

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

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

A fool is wise in his eyes.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.

Only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked.

The worst men often give the best advice.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace.

We should not fret for what is past, nor should we be anxious about the future; men of discernment deal only with the present moment.

In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience.

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

We are wiser than we know.

We cannot wish for that we know not.

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.