Six mistakes mankind keeps making century after century: 1. Believing that personal gain is made by crushing others; 2. Worrying about things that cannot be changed or corrected; 3. Insisting that a thing is impossible because we cannot accomplish it; 4. Refusing to set aside trivial preferences; 5. Neglecting development and refinement of the mind; 6. Attempting to compel others to believe and live as we do.
The traitor rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.
Small-minded people blame others. Average people blame themselves. The wise see all blame as foolishness.
Tis sometimes the height of wisdom to feign stupidity.
The mind becomes accustomed to things by the habitual sight of them,Ā and neither wonders nor inquires about the reasons for things it sees allĀ the time.
To be ignorant of the lives of the most celebrated men of antiquity is to continue in a state of childhood all our days.
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child.
To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?
Politicians are not born; they are excreted.
Those who are serious in ridiculous matters will be ridiculous in serious matters.
Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within.
Any man can make mistakes, but only an idiot persists in his error.
God save me from fools with a little philosophy – no one is more difficult to reach.
To enter upon rulership of a country but not preserve its scholars will result in the downfall of the country.
I am not ashamed to confess I am ignorant of what I do not know.
We must not say every mistake is a foolish one.
It is the peculiar quality of a fool to perceive the faults of othersĀ and to forget his own.
Most of what passes for legitimate entertainment is inferior or foolish and only caters to or exploits people’s weaknesses. Avoid being one of the mob who indulges in such pastimes. Your life is too short and you have important things to do. Be discriminating about what images and ideas you permit into your mind. If you yourself don’t choose what thoughts and images you expose yourself to, someone else will, and their motives may not be the highest. It is the easiest thing in the world to slide imperceptibly into vulgarity. But there’s no need for that to happen if you determine not to waste your time and attention on mindless pap.
Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.
