By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.
You place too much importance... on the so-called purity of blood! You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be!
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.
Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Be curious, not judgmental.
We never see ourselves as others see us.
Don't criticize what you don't understand, son. You never walked in that man's shoes.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
Let him who would move the world first move himself.
I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.
Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.
Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable,is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
