When life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well spare,--muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works that belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy, is young in fourscore years, and dropping off obstructions, leaves in happy subjects the mind purified and wise.
Crafty men condemn studies; Simple men admire them; And wise men use them: For they teach not their own use: but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation.
Let no person think lightly of good, saying in his or her heart, "it will not benefit me." As by the falling of raindrops a jar of water is filled, so the wise person becomes full of good, even though he or she collects it little by little.
I never was attached to that great sect, Whose doctrine is that each one should select Out of the crowd a mistress or a friend, And all the rest, though fair and wise, commend, To cold oblivion.
For the wise man delights in establishing his merit, the brave man likes to show his courage in action, the covetous man is quick at seizing advantages, and the stupid man has no fear of death.
Wise statesmen ... established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity should look up again at the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began.
Master your words. Master your thoughts. Never allow your body to do harm. Follow these three roads with purity And you will find yourself upon the one way, The way of wisdom.
Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.
We rejoice in the joys of our friends as much as we do our own, and we are equally grieved at their sorrows. Wherefore the wise people will feel toward their friends as they do toward themselves, and whatever labor they would encounter with a view to their own pleasure, they will encounter also for the sake of their friends.