Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

Every increased possession loads us with a new weariness.

The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost the power of reason.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

Many men have been capable of doing a wise thing, more a cunning thing, but very few a generous thing.

A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.

Education comes from within; you get it by struggle and effort and thought.

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

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

Thought and theory must precede all salutary action; yet action is nobler in itself than either thought or theory.

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy the mad daughter of a wise mother. These daughters have too long dominated the earth.

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

Most damage that others do us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion.

My wife and I don’t compete. We know each other’s preferences, and we work to provide those for each other. One will take over when the other is faced with something he or she dislikes. That’s what friends do.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

Very often, say what you will, a knave is only a fool.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a nonworking cat.

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

I’d like to believe that the people that have supported me in my work or identified with me in films, the people that feel they know me, they do and they don’t have misconceptions – they understand. I believe that.

We can learn to see each other and see ourselves in each other and recognize that human beings are more alike than we are unalike.

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.‘

As long as you know men are like children, you know everything!

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The less you know, the more you believe.

All our words are but crumbs that fall down from the feast of the mind.

He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.

Our best thoughts come from others.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

As a blind man has no idea of colors, so have we no idea of the manner by which the all-wise God perceives and understands all things.

I read Plato’s ‚Republic.‘ I read it through about five times until I could actually understand it.

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.

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

Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.

There is no darkness but ignorance.

The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

Truth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.

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

Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen.

Forty is the old age of youth, fifty is the youth of old age.

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.

Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

I don’t know what’s the matter with people: they don’t learn by understanding; they learn by some other way – by rote, or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!

The best advice comes from people who don’t give advice.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

I don’t hate women – they just sometimes make me mad.

Say not, ‚I have found the truth,‘ but rather, ‚I have found a truth.‘

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself.

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

Change alone is unchanging.

The royal road to a man’s heart is to talk to him about the things he treasures most.

We should play free football, defend lively with a passion, and have the best understanding in offence.

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

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

You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you mad.

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