We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.

But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.

One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.

Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.

A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.

Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.

There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.

Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.

I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than that.

Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.

Only idiots refuse to change their minds.

All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens

In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.

Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.

It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed possible

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.