wisdom Quotes

In the world there is nothing more submissive and weak than water. Yet for attacking that which is hard and strong nothing can surpass it.

If you must hold yourself up to your children as an object lesson, hold yourself up as a warning and not as an example.

I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.

The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.

In order to govern, the question is not to follow out a more or less valid theory but to build with whatever materials are at hand. The inevitable must be accepted and turned to advantage.

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

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

Thought is a key to all treasures; the miser's gains are ours without his cares. Thus I have soared above this world, where my enjoyment have been intellectual joys.

I am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greek and Roman leave to us.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.