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

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.

Men may change their climate, but they cannot change their nature. A man that goes out a fool cannot ride or sail himself into common sense.

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

Everything deep is also simple and can be reproduced simply as long as its reference to the whole truth is maintained. But what matters is not what is witty but what is true.

It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

Wisdom begins in wonder.

‚Suffering should not make us bitter people,‘ my mother once said, ‚it should make us better comforters.‘ Young people need to hear this from those who have walked before them, because someday they’ll be walking those same steps, but there may not be anyone following behind.

My relationship to power and authority is that I’m all for it. People need somebody to watch over them. Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave.

True virtue is life under the direction of reason.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

Moderation is a fatal thing. Nothing succeeds like excess.

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate, upon real favors from nation to nation. It is an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard.

Because of my wrestling background, nothing a director can throw at me on a set can faze me.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

It is better, of course, to know useless things than to know nothing.

When you write your first book aged 25 or so, you have 25 years of experience, albeit much of it juvenile experience. The second book comes after an extra year sitting in bookshops. Pretty soon, you begin to run on empty.

So near is falsehood to truth that a wise man would do well not to trust himself on the narrow edge.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

The career of a sage is of two kinds: He is either honored by all in the world, Like a flower waving its head, Or else he disappears into the silent forest.

Jim Cramer is a very smart man. I watch his show. I just do not follow his advice.

Silence is one of the great arts of conversation.

Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.

I haven’t gone out of my way to seek advice from people I don’t know.

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

But Satan now is wiser than of yore, and tempts by making rich, not making poor.

You can know or not know how a car runs and still enjoy riding in a car.

Conscience is a man’s compass.

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

If I am walking with two other men, each of them will serve as my teacher. I will pick out the good points of the one and imitate them, and the bad points of the other and correct them in myself.

The union of the Word and the Mind produces that mystery which is called Life… Learn deeply of the Mind and its mystery, for therein lies the secret of immortality.

It is said that the present is pregnant with the future.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Commonsense is the realised sense of proportion.

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

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

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.

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

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

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

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

Every man over forty is a scoundrel.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

It was the experience of mystery – even if mixed with fear – that engendered religion.

Perception often lags behind reality, and I can say from experience that the vast majority of public officials in Louisiana are much better than our reputation holds us to be.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

Is it not rather what we expect in men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by side and never compare them with each other?

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic – you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner.

He who hath many friends hath none.

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

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.