Proverbs are always platitudes until you have personally experienced the truth of them.

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

When I was young, an eccentric uncle decided to teach me how to lie. Not, he explained, because he wanted me to lie, but because he thought I should know how it’s done so I would recognise when I was being lied to.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

The reward of suffering is experience.

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

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

Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

That which is not good for the bee-hive cannot be good for the bees.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal, act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In seasons of danger, he cleaves to it.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

I think I’ve got wiser.

Philosophy is the highest music.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

Life is about conduct and how we conduct ourselves. But two wrongs never make a right.

There are truths which are not for all men, nor for all times.

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

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

I have seen many storms in my life. Most storms have caught me by surprise, so I had to learn very quickly to look further and understand that I am not capable of controlling the weather, to exercise the art of patience and to respect the fury of nature.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

Change alone is unchanging.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people’s happiness.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

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

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.

A lot of truth is said in jest.

Silence is the virtue of fools.

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.

Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.

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

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

When you are young you tend to do so many things that are not needed. When you get experience, you know what exactly what works for you and you tend to do things that you want.

There is only a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool.

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

It is easy to hate and it is difficult to love. This is how the whole scheme of things works. All good things are difficult to achieve; and bad things are very easy to get.

Love is a really scary thing, and you never know what’s going to happen. It’s one of the most beautiful things in life, but it’s one of the most terrifying. It’s worth the fear because you have more knowledge, experience, you learn from people, and you have memories.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.

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.

It is in life as it is in ways, the shortest way is commonly the foulest, and surely the fairer way is not much about.

I try to sprinkle a little gems and jewels in the music that people could use in their own life.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

‚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.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

Truth is the beginning of every good to the gods, and of every good to man.

I don’t think I’ve ever read poetry, ever.

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

Never go to excess, but let moderation be your guide.