Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

An empty stomach is not a good political adviser.

Despair is the conclusion of fools.

Experience is the child of thought, and thought is the child of action.

You cannot step into the same river twice.

An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.

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

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

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

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

When the solution is simple, God is answering.

The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.

He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

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

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

Who is the most sensible person? The one who finds what is to their own advantage in all that happens to them.

There’s nothing you can know that isn’t known.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

Laws too gentle are seldom obeyed; too severe, seldom executed.

We must all obey the great law of change. It is the most powerful law of nature.

Sin, also for those who don’t have faith, exists when one goes against one’s conscience. To listen to and obey it means, in fact, to decide in face of what is perceived as good or evil. And on this decision pivots the goodness or malice of our action.

No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

The generous Critic fann’d the Poet’s fire, And taught the world with reason to admire.

Never pick a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

The lust for comfort, that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest, and then becomes a host, and then a master.

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.

The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see.

Force does not constitute right… obedience is due only to legitimate powers.

I know My God commands, whose power no power resists.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority.

You could not step twice into the same rivers; for other waters are ever flowing on to you.

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

Courage is knowing what not to fear.

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.

I’m married. My wife, Stella – a beautiful woman. She’s brought a lot of peace to my life, a lot of wisdom.

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

The word ‚belief‘ is a difficult thing for me. I don’t believe. I must have a reason for a certain hypothesis. Either I know a thing, and then I know it – I don’t need to believe it.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?

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

Men must be taught as if you taught them not, and things unknown proposed as things forgot.

Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair; the rest is in the hands of God.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.

Satan is wiser now than before, and tempts by making rich instead of poor.

I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled. If we’re not being controlled, we’ll just do what we want.

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

A man can take a little bourbon without getting drunk, but if you hold his mouth open and pour in a quart, he’s going to get sick on it.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.