The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters.

Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same.

A word to the wise is infuriating.

The real problem is not why some pious, humble, believing people suffer, but why some do not.

Are creeds such simple things like the clothes which a man can change at will and put on at will? Creeds are such for which people live for ages and ages.

As a single withered tree, if set aflame, causes a whole forest to burn, so does a rascal son destroy a whole family.

He that won’t be counseled can’t be helped.

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

Regrets are the natural property of grey hairs.

Blessedness is not the reward of virtue but virtue itself.

Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.

The truth is often terrifying, which I think is one of the motifs of Larry and Andrew’s cinema. The cost of knowledge is an important theme. In the second and third films, they explore the consequences of Neo’s choice to know the truth. It’s a beautiful, beautiful story.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

A man can do what he wants, but not want what he wants.

Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual.

Our object in the construction of the state is the greatest happiness of the whole, and not that of any one class.

So act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

Even death is not to be feared by one who has lived wisely.

Wise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.

My philosophy in life is, Decide what you want to do. You have to have something to hope for.

I’m a strict, strict agnostic. It’s very different from a casual, ‚I don’t know.‘ It’s that you cannot present as knowledge something that is not knowledge. You can present it as faith, you can present it as belief, but you can’t present it as fact.

It is folly for a man to pray to the gods for that which he has the power to obtain by himself.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

What is imponderable in the world is greater than what we can handle.

What the devil is the point of surviving, going on living, when it’s a drag? But you see, that’s what people do.

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

The world is all the richer for having a devil in it, so long as we keep our foot upon his neck.

It is a mania shared by philosophers of all ages to deny what exists and to explain what does not exist.

If man made himself the first object of study, he would see how incapable he is of going further. How can a part know the whole?

My philosophy is simple: It’s a down-home, common, horse-sense approach to things.

For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.

The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

We have but one permanent home: heaven – that’s still the old truth that we always have to re-learn – and it’s only through the impact of sad experiences that we assimilate it.

All men are equal before fish.

Truth is the property of no individual but is the treasure of all men.

If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

It is not well to make great changes in old age.

Nature abhors annihilation.

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

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

I never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as cause for withdrawing from a friend.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

My philosophy is that if I have any money I invest it in new ventures and not have it sitting around.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.

It’s no wonder that truth is stranger than fiction. Fiction has to make sense.

The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name. The Nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth; the Named is the mother of all things.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

I think the materialist conception of history is valid.

Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence.

Susceptibility to the highest forces is the highest genius.

In so far as the mind is stronger than the body, so are the ills contracted by the mind more severe than those contracted by the body.

People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

And yet it moves.