Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.

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

At twenty years of age the will reigns; at thirty, the wit; and at forty, the judgment.

There should be an honest attempt at the reconciliation of differences before resorting to combat.

To be clear: we have fights and problems like any other couple.

I think, a lot of times when you meet someone, you feel like you need to appear like you’re not interested in them so that they’ll be more interested in you. But what happens when you start showing him that you actually like him? What’s he gonna do then? Play the tape forward; how do you keep a guy like that? I don’t want to sign up for that.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

If you want to get each individual’s honest opinion, you don’t want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.

At one time, you could sit on the Rue de la Paix in Paris or at the Habima Theater in Tel Aviv or in Medina and you could see a person come in, black, white, it didn’t matter. You said, ‚That’s an American‘ because there’s a readiness to smile and to talk to people.

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Doubt grows with knowledge.

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

Never give an order that can’t be obeyed.

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.

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

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

If you want to talk about something new, you have to make up a new kind of language.

She had lost the art of conversation but not, unfortunately, the power of speech.

No man who worships education has got the best out of education… Without a gentle contempt for education no man’s education is complete.

We seem gradually to be groping toward an understanding of the world of subatomic particles, but we really do not know how far we have yet to go in this task.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise.

I know love is the answer.

I am an introvert; privately I am very shy, and I don’t speak unless I have to.

If history repeats itself, and the unexpected always happens, how incapable must Man be of learning from experience.

A yawn is a silent shout.

It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil.

Falsehood is cowardice, the truth courage.

Great leaders are almost always great simplifiers, who can cut through argument, debate and doubt, to offer a solution everybody can understand.

Anyone who says he can see through women is missing a lot.

Words are but symbols for the relations of things to one another and to us; nowhere do they touch upon absolute truth.

Truth is so rare that it is delightful to tell it.

My mind doesn’t work, my memories don’t work like a computer file where I can just retrieve them and, boy, there it is. My mind is selective in terms of memories. When I try to think back to college or high school, there are gaps. I try to fill them in. But I can’t tell you it’s always the truth.

You’ve got to work things out in the cloakroom, and when you’ve got them worked out, you can debate a little before you vote.

When I got somethin‘ to say, I’ll say it.

Brevity and conciseness are the parents of correction.

All theory, dear friend, is gray, but the golden tree of life springs ever green.

We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another – until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.

I have done one thing that I think is a contribution: I helped Buddhist science and modern science combine. No other Buddhist has done that. Other lamas, I don’t think they ever pay attention to modern science. Since my childhood, I have a keen interest.

No one ever doubts that I mean what I say. The problem is I sometimes say all that I mean.

I know that campaigns can seem small, and even silly. Trivial things become big distractions. Serious issues become sound bites. And the truth gets buried under an avalanche of money and advertising. If you’re sick of hearing me approve this message, believe me – so am I.

Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.

The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.

Words, words, words! They shut one off from the universe. Three quarters of the time one’s never in contact with things, only with the beastly words that stand for them.

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come.

He who is to be a good ruler must have first been ruled.

The minority is sometimes right; the majority always wrong.

If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

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

Man is the most intelligent of the animals – and the most silly.

There is only one failure in life possible, and that is not to be true to the best one knows.

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

Truth never damages a cause that is just.

Every legend, moreover, contains its residuum of truth, and the root function of language is to control the universe by describing it.

People have to talk about something just to keep their voice boxes in working order so they’ll have good voice boxes in case there’s ever anything really meaningful to say.

If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

It’s considered acceptable in our culture to approach perfect strangers, as often or not who may be in extremis, and evangelise. I don’t see why that’s considered a normal thing.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But the book cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and read the letters in which it is composed.