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

The shoe that fits one person pinches another; there is no recipe for living that suits all cases.

I think unconscious bias is one of the hardest things to get at.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.

No intelligent black man or black woman in his or her right black mind wants white boys and white girls coming to their homes to marry their black sons and daughters.

Reason commands us far more imperiously than a master; for in disobeying the one we are unfortunate, and in disobeying the other we are fools.

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

If I went back to my 20-year-old self, what I would tell my 20-year-old self is, ‚You don’t know anything.‘ Because everyone, when they’re young, they think they know what’s going on in the world, and you don’t.

The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight, but has no vision.

I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.

The essence of all religions is one. Only their approaches are different.

The knowledge of God is very far from the love of Him.

There isn’t anybody that looks like me without clothes on.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

All these walls that keep us from loving each other as one family or one race – racism, religion, where we grew up, whatever, class, socioeconomic – what makes us be so selfish and prideful, what keeps us from wanting to help the next man, what makes us be so focused on a personal legacy as opposed to the entire legacy of a race.

To suffer the penalty of too much haste, which is too little speed.

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

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

The stories are not autobiographical, but they’re personal in that way. I seem to know only the things that I’ve learned. Probably some things through observation, but what I feel I know surely is personal.

The least initial deviation from the truth is multiplied later a thousandfold.

The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination – and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past – are real and must be addressed.

When I do a picture and it’s 90% black, like ‚Bird,‘ I use 90% black people.

The superior man acts before he speaks, and afterwards speaks according to his action.

I have no faith in human perfectability. I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity. Man is now only more active – not more happy – nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.

I’m strictly for Stevenson. I don’t dig the intellectual bit, but I’m telling you, man, he knows the most.

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools.

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

When I look upon seamen, men of science and philosophers, man is the wisest of all beings; when I look upon priests and prophets nothing is as contemptible as man.

We don’t want to promote any system that treats the fact that an individual is LGBT as a personality disorder. And anything that perpetuates that perception is harmful – not only to that member of the community but the entire community.

I’m too busy acting like I’m not Naive. I’ve seen it all, I was here first.

Time discovers truth.

Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

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.

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot that it do singe yourself.

The cautious seldom err.

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

We are a nation of communities… a brilliant diversity spread like stars, like a thousand points of light in a broad and peaceful sky.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.

Those whom the gods love grow young.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

In this country, it doesn’t make any difference where you were born. It doesn’t make any difference who your parents were. It doesn’t make any difference if, like me, you couldn’t even speak English until you were in your twenties.

Truth is a good dog; but always beware of barking too close to the heels of an error, lest you get your brains kicked out.

I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.

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.

We are trying to construct a more inclusive society. We are going to make a country in which no one is left out.

All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

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

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

The wisest hustler can suddenly fall for the worst tramp and lose all of his money on her. The hustler is aware of his own weaknesses and openings to con. This awareness is his edge.

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.

It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of thirty, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.

I believe that it is better to tell the truth than a lie. I believe it is better to be free than to be a slave. And I believe it is better to know than to be ignorant.