Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

Christmas is a season not only of rejoicing but of reflection.

When we get to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon turns into mere limitation and exclusion.

The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.

I am not the humblest person in the world. I admit that.

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

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

If atomic bombs are to be added as new weapons to the arsenals of a warring world, or to the arsenals of nations preparing for war, then the time will come when mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and of Hiroshima.

This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.

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

It’s important that we attempt to extend life beyond Earth now. It is the first time in the four billion-year history of Earth that it’s been possible, and that window could be open for a long time – hopefully it is – or it could be open for a short time. We should err on the side of caution and do something now.

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul.

Well, I don’t think there’s any need for people to focus on my career.

One can not reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others.

He knows my limitations and where I’m a good wife and a good mom.

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

Happiness is within the reach of everyone, rich or poor. Yet comparatively few people are happy. I believe the reason for this is that the majority don’t recognize happiness even when it is within their grasp.

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.

I’ve learned people are watching, so don’t do nothing stupid.

There is such a thing as old emotional pain living inside you. It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain.

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

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

Actors know what actors are insecure about – and they’re all insecure.

If you wish to succeed in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother, and hope your guardian genius.

Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

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

Basically you have to suppress your own ambitions in order to be who you need to be.

Listening to and understanding our inner sufferings will resolve most of the problems we encounter.

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.

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 best books… are those that tell you what you know already.

I don’t think I get that upset over things.

I don’t really read a lot of newspapers. I don’t pay attention to what is being said or written about me. I’ve had lots of experiences in the past when I got too much into it. That sort of diverts your focus.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Tact is the ability to describe others as they see themselves.

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

Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

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

I am the only person in the world I should like to know thoroughly.

How lucky Adam was. He knew when he said a good thing, nobody had said it before.

Everything in excess is opposed to nature.

Be content to seem what you really are.

I can not believe that war is the best solution. No one won the last war, and no one will win the next war.

If somebody thinks they’re a hedgehog, presumably you just give ‚em a mirror and a few pictures of hedgehogs and tell them to sort it out for themselves.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

Foolish men imagine that because judgment for an evil thing is delayed, there is no justice; but only accident here below. Judgment for an evil thing is many times delayed some day or two, some century or two, but it is sure as life, it is sure as death.

Passions are vices or virtues to their highest powers.

Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things. In a world where we are so certain to incur them in spite of all our caution, a certain lightness of heart seems healthier than this excessive nervousness on their behalf.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

Success consecrates the most offensive crimes.

I never give advice unless someone asks me for it. One thing I’ve learned, and possibly the only advice I have to give, is to not be that person giving out unsolicited advice based on your own personal experience.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next.

Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.

It seems, in fact, as though the second half of a man’s life is made up of nothing, but the habits he has accumulated during the first half.

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.

Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality.

I’m the most stubborn person I know.