Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

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

Ours is a nation of laws: of citizens who live under them and for the citizens who enforce them. So, to a community in Ferguson that is rightly hurting and looking for answers, let me call once again for us to seek some understanding rather than simply holler at each other. Let’s seek to heal rather than to wound each other.

We are wiser than we know.

It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.

Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion.

Nature is not human hearted.

It is not until you become a mother that your judgment slowly turns to compassion and understanding.

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.

Don’t get older just to get wiser. If you get older, you will be wiser, I believe that – if you dare. But get older because it’s fun!

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

When we believe the best of people, we let go of each thing they do that is hurtful to us. And we choose to think things like, ‚I don’t believe they meant to hurt me.‘ ‚Maybe they’re having a bad day or don’t feel well.‘ ‚They probably don’t even realize how they sound.‘

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.

Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.

I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

The reason why men do not obey us, is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.

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

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing.

We cannot learn men from books.

We call first truths those we discover after all the others.

If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.

Books are as useful to a stupid person as a mirror is useful to a blind person.

North Americans don’t understand… that our country is not just Cuba; our country is also humanity.

If we are to go forward, we must go back and rediscover those precious values – that all reality hinges on moral foundations and that all reality has spiritual control.

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

Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing.

Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life.

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace.

He who hath many friends hath none.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

I’m no longer just a candidate. I’m the President. I know what it means to send young Americans into battle, for I have held in my arms the mothers and fathers of those who didn’t return. I’ve shared the pain of families who’ve lost their homes, and the frustration of workers who’ve lost their jobs.

The very elements of what constitutes good nursing are as little understood for the well as for the sick. The same laws of health or of nursing, for they are in reality the same, obtain among the well as among the sick.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Self-pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world.

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act.

It isn’t what we don’t know that gives us trouble, it’s what we know that ain’t so.

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

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.

You have to understand that people that are hurting are going to criticize.

A human being would certainly not grow to be seventy or eighty years old if this longevity had no meaning for the species. The afternoon of human life must also have a significance of its own and cannot be merely a pitiful appendage to life’s morning.

Words do not express thoughts very well. They always become a little different immediately after they are expressed, a little distorted, a little foolish.

Always the beautiful answer who asks a more beautiful question.

Anger dwells only in the bosom of fools.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.

I let the dog out, or I let him in, and we talk some. I let him know I like him, and he lets me know he likes me.

One loves to possess arms, though they hope never to have occasion for them.

He that speaks much, is much mistaken.

It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.

Concentrate your energies, your thoughts and your capital. The wise man puts all his eggs in one basket and watches the basket.

Thomas Jefferson once said, ‚We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.‘ And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying.

When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.