That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

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

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presumably has a wider extension than reverence.

The utmost extent of man’s knowledge, is to know that he knows nothing.

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

You accept that this civilisation could be abolished and life will begin later on after a few thousand years because that is something that has happened in the history of this planet. When you have peace in yourself and accept, then you are calm enough to do something, but if you are carried by despair there is no hope.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.

He that will not apply new remedies must expect new evils; for time is the greatest innovator.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

I don’t think we handled the aftermath of the fall of Baghdad as well as we might have. But that’s now history.

I had given up some youth for knowledge, but my gain was more valuable than the loss.

I have lived long enough both in years and in accomplishments.

The unsuccessful person is burdened by learning, and prefers to walk down familiar paths. Their distaste for learning stunts their growth and limits their influence.

If you must speak ill of another, do not speak it, write it in the sand near the water’s edge.

Genius always gives its best at first; prudence, at last.

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!

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

I learned a long time ago how to be coachable.

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

‚Tis not enough your counsel still be true; Blunt truths more mischief than nice falsehoods do.

Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don’t know because we don’t want to know.

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.

The true history of my administration will be written 50 years from now, and you and I will not be around to see it.

I’d read up on the history of our country and I’d become fascinated with the story of the Alamo. To me it represented the fight for freedom, not just in America, but in all countries.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

When I look back at what I had to go through in black baseball, I can only marvel at the many black players who stuck it out for years in the Jim Crow leagues because they had nowhere else to go.

Seek not the favor of the multitude; it is seldom got by honest and lawful means. But seek the testimony of few; and number not voices, but weigh them.

If you look at the history of our country over the last 100 years, there have been periods where science and research have been celebrated. They were really kind of held up as heroes in society, which encouraged a generation of people to go into these fields.

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

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.

I do know that throughout history, all paper money has eventually come back to its true value, which is zero.

The age of a woman doesn’t mean a thing. The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.

A word to the wise is infuriating.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

Nixon is one of the few in the history of this country to run for high office talking out of both sides of his mouth at the same time and lying out of both sides.

Singing into a microphone and learning to play an instrument – learning to do your craft – that’s the most important thing! It’s not about what goes on in a computer!

You’re unlikely to discover something new without a lot of practice on old stuff, but further, you should get a heck of a lot of fun out of working out funny relations and interesting things.

By 1960, the South Africans knew that they were becoming a pariah state.

We have to continue to learn. We have to be open. And we have to be ready to release our knowledge in order to come to a higher understanding of reality.

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

Do not be very upright in your dealings for you would see by going to the forest that straight trees are cut down while crooked ones are left standing.

Once you get into this great stream of history, you can’t get out.

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know.

Men and women do think differently, and frankly, we don’t understand each other. Not at all! But that’s what makes relationships so amazing.

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.

Crowded classrooms and half-day sessions are a tragic waste of our greatest national resource – the minds of our children.

Knowledge and human power are synonymous.

A man only learns in two ways, one by reading, and the other by association with smarter people.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

For 500 years, since European explorers came, Latin American countries had been separated from one another. They had very limited relations. Integration is a prerequisite for independence.

All that I know about my life, it seems, I have learned in books.

It always seems to me so odd that when a man dies, he takes out with him all the knowledge that he has got in his lifetime whilst sowing his wild oats or winning successes. And he leaves his sons or younger brothers to go through all the work of learning it over again from their own experience.

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

You will find men who want to be carried on the shoulders of others, who think that the world owes them a living. They don’t seem to see that we must all lift together and pull together.

The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.