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

Riches are a good hand maiden, but a poor mistress.

Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders.

All my life I’ve been taught how to die, but no one ever taught me how to grow old.

A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.

We know the truth, not only by the reason, but also by the heart.

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

Our best thoughts come from others.

It is the heart always that sees, before the head can see.

I’m sure I’ve changed my mind about something. Inevitably, when we grow up – as we get more experience and wiser. Well, I’ve changed my mind about some food that I didn’t like when I was young.

My grandfather once ventured upon publishing a volume of hymns. I never heard anyone speak in their favour or argue that they ought to have been sung in the congregation. In that volume, he promised a second if the first should prove acceptable. We forgive him the first collection because he did not inflict another.

What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new.

He who learns but does not think, is lost! He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.

The fool wonders, the wise man asks.

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Those who do not know how to live must make a merit of dying.

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.

If a man writes a book, let him set down only what he knows. I have guesses enough of my own.

Fable is more historical than fact, because fact tells us about one man and fable tells us about a million men.

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

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

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

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.

We ought to fly away from earth to heaven as quickly as we can; and to fly away is to become like God, as far as this is possible; and to become like him is to become holy, just, and wise.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all.

If in prayer I come before a throne of grace, the faults of my prayer will be overlooked.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn’t do anything to you, but since you aren’t wise, you need us who are old.

I know nothing, except the fact of my ignorance.

Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.

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

There is nothing makes a man suspect much, more than to know little.

When one has finished building one’s house, one suddenly realizes that in the process one has learned something that one really needed to know in the worst way – before one began.

Thought is the wind and knowledge the sail.

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

I have lived long enough both in years and in accomplishments.

I’ve got a terrible memory; it’s probably because I’m always concentrating on what I’m doing now.

That’s what a man wants in a wife, mostly; he wants to make sure one fool tells him he’s wise.

Untutored courage is useless in the face of educated bullets.

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn’t speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind – like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.

The deed is everything, the glory is naught.

I am a Christian, and the Bible teaches me to forgive.

A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man’s life as in a book. Haste makes waste, no less in life than in housekeeping. Keep the time, observe the hours of the universe, not of the cars.

Half a truth is often a great lie.

Gain may be temporary and uncertain; but ever while you live, expense is constant and certain: and it is easier to build two chimneys than to keep one in fuel.

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance.

Every step of life shows much caution is required.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.

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

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

The wit knows that his place is at the tail of a procession.

The more extensive a man’s knowledge of what has been done, the greater will be his power of knowing what to do.

All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen.

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

If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.

The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.