There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating – people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.

The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.

Information is not knowledge.

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

Be careful to leave your sons well instructed rather than rich, for the hopes of the instructed are better than the wealth of the ignorant.

Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.

The fact is: It’s true what they say about the United States. It is a land of opportunity. It is too various to get bored with it.

I was inspired to spend an entire year – my 65th year – reading, researching, and meditating on Lao-tzu’s messages, practicing them and ultimately writing down these insights as I felt Lao-tzu wanted us to know them.

I have never met a man so ignorant that I couldn’t learn something from him.

Experience never errs; it is only your judgments that err by promising themselves effects such as are not caused by your experiments.

Don’t part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.

I’ve still not written as well as I want to. I want to write so that the reader in Des Moines, Iowa, in Kowloon, China, in Cape Town, South Africa, can say, ‚You know, that’s the truth. I wasn’t there, and I wasn’t a six-foot black girl, but that’s the truth.‘

We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

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

Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

The progress of rivers to the ocean is not so rapid as that of man to error.

All philosophy lies in two words, sustain and abstain.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

My father had a dairy farm. He employed three black families and one white family, and I used to play with black children.

The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little.

I love it when Muslims go to war with each other, as I do when the Christians do, because it shows there’s no such thing as the Christian world and the Islamic world. That’s all crap.

Pakistan is not a unified country.

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

Every people have gods to suit their circumstances.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

You know, nothing is more important than education, because nowhere are our stakes higher; our future depends on the quality of education of our children today.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.

He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

I learned from my dog long before I went to Gombe that we weren’t the only beings with personalities. What the chimps did was help me to persuade others.

Being at ease with not knowing is crucial for answers to come to you.

Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

I believe that God breathed life into every person and that every person is made in the image of God and you have accept them as they are, on their journey. I’m not here to preach hate or push people down.

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

Science is nothing but perception.

The bottom line is that everyone thinks differently.

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

It says nothing against the ripeness of a spirit that it has a few worms.

Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed was the ninth beatitude.

As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don’t know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?

Regarding life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is worthless.

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

It is dangerous to be sincere unless you are also stupid.

If we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

I want to support other women because of the opportunities I’ve had – and I’ve had a lot of opportunities. What I try as a female director is to do the best job I can and, in the meantime, bring attention to as many other female directors and writers as I can.

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

The last suit that you wear, you don’t need any pockets.

The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.

Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity.