We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

We should take care not to make the intellect our goal; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality.

It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.

I am not young enough to know everything.

Some minds remain open long enough for the truth not only to enter but to pass on through by way of a ready exit without pausing anywhere along the route.

If I went to work in a factory the first thing I’d do is join a union.

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

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

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

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.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

I’m all about peace. I’m all about unity. I’m all about love.

If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life – in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

We need to try to unite audiences, unite countries, join musical tastes, unite people.

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

As a matter of self-preservation, a man needs good friends or ardent enemies, for the former instruct him and the latter take him to task.

One whose knowledge is confined to books and whose wealth is in the possession of others, can use neither his knowledge nor wealth when the need for them arises.

Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives, but on balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise.

If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.

All the learnin‘ my father paid for was a bit o‘ birch at one end and an alphabet at the other.

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

Nothing can be by itself alone, no one can be by himself or herself alone, everyone has to inter-be with every one else. That is why, when you look outside, around you, you can see yourself.

I would fain grow old learning many things.

I think there’s just one kind of folks. Folks.

Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.

There are only two forces that unite men – fear and interest.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Racial prejudice, anti-Semitism, or hatred of anyone with different beliefs has no place in the human mind or heart.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

Football fans share a universal language that cuts across many cultures and many personality types. A serious football fan is never alone. We are legion, and football is often the only thing we have in common.

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

We’re a diverse society, and I think the TV is doing a great job in showing that we’re all human beings, that we can all get along, that we can all be together, and I think that’s a marvelous thing.

Perplexity is the beginning of knowledge.

Information helps you to see that you’re not alone. That there’s somebody in Mississippi and somebody in Tokyo who all have wept, who’ve all longed and lost, who’ve all been happy. So the library helps you to see, not only that you are not alone, but that you’re not really any different from everyone else.

Never pray for justice, because you might get some.

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

Only Americans can hurt America.

I really, truly believe that writing comes out of the body; of course, the mind is working as well, but it’s a double thing and that doubleness is united. I mean, you can’t separate persona from psyche; you just can’t do it.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

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

It seems the older you get, the more life comes into focus.

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

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

If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.

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.

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

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion.

The Occupy movement did create spontaneously communities that taught people something: you can be in a supportive community of mutual aid and cooperation and develop your own health system and library and have open space for democratic discussion and participation. Communities like that are really important.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.

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

The more I see the less I know for sure.

We have a great group of guys that really sacrifice every night, care about each other, and try to play the right away.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

You will find as you grow older that courage is the rarest of all qualities to be found in public life.

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom.