You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.

I no longer feel attracted to the well-made novel. I want to write the story that will zero in and give you intense, but not connected, moments of experience. I guess that’s the way I see life. People remake themselves bit by bit and do things they don’t understand.

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

I like being able to be on the inside of music, rather than on the outside listening to it.

Don’t throw stones at your neighbors if your own windows are glass.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.

A man can’t be too careful in the choice of his enemies.

All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.

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.

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

Old age is like a plane flying through a storm. Once you’re aboard, there’s nothing you can do.

The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live.

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always.

I’d rather learn from one bird how to sing than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.

How we experience memory sometimes, it’s not linear. We’re not telling the stories to ourselves. We know the story; we’re just seeing it in flashes overlaid.

We all want progress, but if you’re on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road; in that case, the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

The real truths of life are never entirely new to you or to anybody because there is a level deep down within you where you already know all the things, all those spiritual truths that you read or hear, and then recognize them. I say ‚recognize‘ because you’re not… it’s not new.

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.

How young can you die of old age?

Nature gives you the face you have at twenty; it is up to you to merit the face you have at fifty.

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

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

There is a time to take counsel of your fears, and there is a time to never listen to any fear.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.

Where knowledge ends, religion begins.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.

I have trouble reading modern Hebrew. In the 1950s, I could read anything. I don’t know how much experience you’ve had with contemporary Hebrew. It’s quite difficult.

He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.

I wish I had known when I was in the White House what I know now about the Third World.

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.

Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.

I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad and to travel for it too!

It took me years to eat a lot of shellfish. I was probably 20 years old before I had even seen a shrimp cocktail. I like oysters, but fried.

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

I used to read five psalms every day – that teaches me how to get along with God. Then I read a chapter of Proverbs every day and that teaches me how to get along with my fellow man.

The Italians and Spanish, the Chinese and Vietnamese see food as part of a larger, more essential and pleasurable part of daily life. Not as an experience to be collected or bragged about – or as a ritual like filling up a car – but as something else that gives pleasure, like sex or music, or a good nap in the afternoon.

I had been told from school onwards that the best definition of a human being was man the tool-maker – yet I had just watched a chimp tool-maker in action. I remember that day as vividly as if it was yesterday.

There’s a War Crimes Act in the United States passed by a Republican Congress in 1996, which says that grave breaches of the Geneva Convention are subject to the death penalty. And that doesn’t mean the soldier that committed them – that means the commanders.

Talent is something that comes from within; it has nothing to do with age.

Old age has deformities enough of its own. It should never add to them the deformity of vice.

The time to take counsel of your fears is before you make an important battle decision. That’s the time to listen to every fear you can imagine! When you have collected all the facts and fears and made your decision, turn off all your fears and go ahead!

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

I think there is a lot made out of age, and what age you feel.

I know love is the answer.

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

Theories are always very thin and insubstantial, experience only is tangible.

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

My mother used to tell me man gives the award, God gives the reward. I don’t need another plaque.

I love eating chocolate cake and ice cream after a show. I almost justify it in my mind as, ‚You were a good boy onstage and you did your show, so now you can have some cake and ice cream.‘

Live to learn, and you will really learn to live.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.