The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

I’ve always regretted that I never was able to talk openly with my parents, especially with my father. I’ve heard and read so many things about my family that I can no longer believe anything; every relative I question has a completely different story from the last.

There is but one way for a president to deal with Congress, and that is continuously, incessantly, and without interruption. If it is really going to work, the relationship has got to be almost incestuous.

An egg today is better than a hen to-morrow.

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

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

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

I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.

Too often we act – ask our schools to be truant officers, our teachers to be truant officers, because we’re giving them children who have, you know, they’re not ready to learn. And if they’re not ready to learn by the third grade, they know they’re behind.

I’m screamingly funny, you know, I really am in the books. And that helps because I’m funnier than a lot of people, I think, and that’s appreciated by young people.

I’m a very strong believer in listening and learning from others.

Our inquiring friends and neighbors not of our faith can also catch the wave. We encourage them to keep all that is good and true in their lives. And we invite them to receive more, especially the glorious truth that through God’s eternal plan, families can be together forever.

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.

Of course, like anybody I repeat myself endlessly, but I don’t know that I’m doing it, usually.

When I was young I thought that money was the most important thing in life; now that I am old I know that it is.

My mother knew how to read music and everything. But I just kinda learned off of records. And so, I was listening to records and I’d play ‚em over and over.

The mark of a true politician is that he is never at a loss for words because he is always half-expecting to be asked to make a speech.

Well, the thing that I learned as a diplomat is that human relations ultimately make a huge difference.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

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.

If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way.

Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family.

People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way – in such a way that often nobody believes me!

Using e-mail, I can communicate with scientists all over the world.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

Education is the best provision for old age.

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.

Engineering didn’t take to me. And what saved me and kept me in college was I ran into ROTC cadets who were in a fraternity called The Pershing Rifles. And I found my place. I found discipline. I found structure. I found people that were like me and I liked.

I’ll think I have a few wonderful friends and all of a sudden, ooh, here it comes. They do a lot of things. They talk about you to the press, to their friends, tell stories, and you know, it’s disappointing.

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

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

If you ever go to a music session, you’ll notice that the musicians can sit down and start playing right away, and everyone knows what to do. Of course they’re reading it, but the conductor can tweak little things, and you can take that back to directing motion pictures.

Great indebtedness does not make men grateful, but vengeful; and if a little charity is not forgotten, it turns into a gnawing worm.

Woe to the makers of literal translations, who by rendering every word weaken the meaning! It is indeed by so doing that we can say the letter kills and the spirit gives life.

Common Core is a big win for education.

No greater thing is created suddenly, any more than a bunch of grapes or a fig. If you tell me that you desire a fig, I answer you that there must be time. Let it first blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen.

I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

The community which has neither poverty nor riches will always have the noblest principles.

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.

We dissect failure a lot more than we dissect success.

My father used to have an expression. He’d say, ‚Joey, a job is about a lot more than a paycheck. It’s about your dignity. It’s about respect. It’s about your place in your community.‘

Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own.

Speaking English is like tongue-twist for me. I can speak each word perfect, but then you have to string them together like, ‚Blah, blah, blah.‘ That’s when I get crazy.

It is most unwise for people in love to marry.

As far as I’m concerned, I’m a writer who’s writing books, and therefore, I don’t want to die. You’d miss the end of the book wouldn’t you? You can’t die with an unfinished book.

Any fact that needs to be disclosed should be put out now or as quickly as possible, because otherwise the bleeding will not end.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

Maybe every city has a unique sensibility, but we don’t have names for what they are or haven’t identified them all. We can’t pinpoint exactly what makes each city’s people unique yet.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

There’s definitely going to be things that I’m not very good at, things I can improve.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

The proactive approach to a mistake is to acknowledge it instantly, correct and learn from it.

Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.

Thanks to my reading, I have never been caught flat-footed by any situation, never at a loss for how any problem has been addressed… It doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead.

Money has a language of its own.

The secret to the movie business, or any business, is to get a good education in a subject besides film – whether it’s history, psychology, economics, or architecture – so you have something to make a movie about. All the skill in the world isn’t going to help you unless you have something to say.