When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

To reform a world, to reform a nation, no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid, though a far slower reformation, is what each begins and perfects on himself.

I learned a great many years ago that in a fight between husband and wife, a third party should never get between the woman’s skillet and the man’s ax-helve.

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.

Silence is the mother of truth.

Whoever doesn’t know it must learn and find by experience that ‚a quiet conscience makes one strong!‘

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

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage, half shut afterwards.

Young men soon give, and soon forget, affronts; old age is slow in both.

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Fools admire, but men of sense approve.

All that mankind has done, thought or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them.

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.

An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind.

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

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.

The sage does not hoard. The more he helps others, the more he benefits himself, The more he gives to others, the more he gets himself. The Way of Heaven does one good but never does one harm. The Way of the sage is to act but not to compete.

Every time I plant a seed, He say kill it before it grow, he say kill it before they grow.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

I think that a man should not live beyond the age when he begins to deteriorate, when the flame that lighted the brightest moment of his life has weakened.

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

Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

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

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.

He who would pass his declining years with honor and comfort, should, when young, consider that he may one day become old, and remember when he is old, that he has once been young.

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

A witty saying proves nothing.

People do not wish to appear foolish; to avoid the appearance of foolishness, they are willing to remain actually fools.

If you pursue good with labor, the labor passes away but the good remains; if you pursue evil with pleasure, the pleasure passes away and the evil remains.

To realize that you do not understand is a virtue; Not to realize that you do not understand is a defect.

Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

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.

What one fool can understand, another can.

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.

To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.

Before God we are all equally wise – and equally foolish.

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache.

The superior man understands what is right; the inferior man understands what will sell.

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

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

On the way back from Mumbai to go meet with President Xi in China, I stopped in Singapore to meet with a guy named Lee Kuan Yew, who most foreign policy experts around the world say is the wisest man in the Orient.

By gnawing through a dike, even a rat may drown a nation.

Those that know, do. Those that understand, teach.

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.

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

The wisest have the most authority.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.

Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.

A minute of thought is greater than an hour of talk.

Virtue is like a rich stone, best plain set.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

Governing a great nation is like cooking a small fish – too much handling will spoil it.

The misfortune of the wise is better than the prosperity of the fool.

We’re in the last days, man – I truly, in my heart, believe that. It’s written. I could go on with biblical situations and things my grandma told me. But it’s about being at peace with myself and making good with the people around me.