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.

After the first blush of sin comes its indifference.

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

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

It isn’t necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.

There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

The world is a looking glass and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face.

After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others.

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.

Travel, in the younger sort, is a part of education; in the elder, a part of experience.

How did it get so late so soon? Its night before its afternoon. December is here before its June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.

Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones on hand do more to produce a happy life than the volumes we can’t find.

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.

The world forgetting, by the world forgot.

Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.

The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

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

Many a good hanging prevents a bad marriage.

I think that all things, in their way, reflect heavenly truth, the imagination not least.

A man lives by believing something: not by debating and arguing about many things.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

It is in the thirties that we want friends. In the forties we know they won’t save us any more than love did.

Now I realize that from ’72 through to about ’76, I was the ultimate rock star. I couldn’t have been more rock star.

What is this world that is hastening me toward I know not what, viewing me with contempt?

You must become an old man in good time if you wish to be an old man long.

I think 9/11 affected everybody in one way or another.

Good habits formed at youth make all the difference.

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them.

The wisest have the most authority.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.

We are always doing something for posterity, but I would fain see posterity do something for us.

Why love if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore; only the life I have lived. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

Reflect upon your present blessings of which every man has many – not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.

Passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and significant.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

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

Clever men are good, but they are not the best.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.

When all is said and done, more is said than done.

No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.

If an elderly but distinguished scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right; but if he says that it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

Men who have reached and passed forty-five, have a look as if waiting for the secret of the other world, and as if they were perfectly sure of having found out the secret of this.

As I’m traveling around, I meet many small children. And when I look at a small and think how we’ve harmed this beautiful planet since I was that age, I feel a kind of desperation, anger, shame. I don’t know what I feel; I just don’t know what the emotion is.

I think that I do feel that my nature is to express what this self, this particular self at this time, experiences in the world. And that is so organic – I use this metaphor a lot but I’ll use it again – it’s like a pine tree producing pine cones, or a blackberry bush producing blackberries – it’s just what happens with this being, now.

Is it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

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

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.

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

They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it’s not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

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.