Quotes About Wisdom

People who begin sentences with "I may be old-fashioned but—" are usually not only old-fashioned but wrong.

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.

I am not ambitious to appear a man of letters: I could be content the world should think I had scarce looked upon any other book than that of nature.

The average teacher explains complexity; the gifted teacher reveals simplicity.

If a rabbit defined intelligence the way man does, then the most intelligent animal would be a rabbit, followed by the animal most willing to obey the commands of a rabbit.

If you keep rephrasing the question, it gradually becomes the answer.

If I had it to do again, I'd ask more questions and interrupt fewer answers.

Each day learn something new, and just as important, relearn something old.

What you discover about life's shell game is that it's hardest to follow the pea when you're the pea.

An aphorism is a single sentence that totally exhausts its subject.

To become a grandparent is to enjoy one of the few pleasures in life for which the consequences have already been paid.

It's like this. Father Time keeps pitching the years at us. We swing and miss at a few. We hit a few out of the park. We try not to take any called strikes.

The experience I gained at age 21 would be useful if I were ever 21 again. But I'm 71 and new at it and keep making age 71 mistakes.

One is more apt to become wise by doing fool things than by reading wise sayings.

If you could travel back in time to the present moment, what would you do differently?

To the student I would say, "Life is principally multiple choice, but at the end there's a tough essay question."

Today I bent the truth to be kind, and I have no regret, for I am far surer of what is kind than I am of what is true.

There was never a wise saying that couldn't be made wiser by adding the words, "and vice-versa."

The aphorist sees in every truth a wise saying, and in every contradiction, two wise sayings.

As a gardener, I wonder if flowers really can't speak or just exercise unfailing good judgment in the matter.

A wise saying is something you keep picking up off the floor in front of your fridge.

Anything we tell our kids about life is a placemarker until they figure it out for themselves.

If you teach your children nothing else, teach them the Golden Rule and "righty-tighty, lefty-loosey."

The trick to writing an aphorism is to place a period at the point where you're inclined to say, "in other words...."