Almost no one is foolish enough to imagine that he automatically deserves great success in any field of activity; yet almost everyone believes that he automatically deserves success in marriage.
The greatest enemy of progress is not stagnation, but false progress.
Honesty consists of the unwillingness to lie to others; maturity, which is equally hard to attain, consists of the unwillingness to lie to oneself.
History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.
Why do most Americans look up to education and down upon educated people?
No one should pay attention to a man delivering a lecture or a sermon on his “philosophy of life” until we know exactly how he treats his wife, his children, his neighbors, his friends, his subordinates and his enemies.
Law is order in liberty, and without order liberty is social chaos.
People decline invitations when they are “indisposed” physically, and I wish they would do likewise when they feel indisposed emotionally. A person has no more right to attend a party with a head full of venom than with a throat full of virus.
Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.
Any creed whose basic doctrines do not include respect for the creeds of others, is simply power politics masquerading as philosophy.
Middle Age is that perplexing time of life when we hear two voices calling us, one saying, ‘Why not?’ and the other, ‘Why bother?’
The pessimist sees only the tunnel; the optimist sees the light at the end of the tunnel; the realist sees the tunnel and the light – and the next tunnel.
Confidence, once lost or betrayed, can never be restored again to the same measure; and we learn too late in life that our acts of deception are irrevocable – they may be forgiven, but they cannot be forgotten by their victims.
A ‘penchant for telling the truth’ can cripple a candidates chances faster than being caught in flagrante delicto with the governor’s wife.
The founder of every creed from Jesus Christ to Karl Marx, would be appalled to return to earth and see what has been made of that creed, not by its enemies, but by its most devoted adherents.
If you cannot endure to be thought in the wrong, you will begin to do terrible things to make the wrong appear right.
Nothing is as easy to make as a promise this winter to do something next summer; this is how commencement speakers are caught.
The world has always been betrayed by decent men with bad ideals.
Many persons of high intelligence have notoriously poor judgement.
Ignorance per se is not nearly as dangerous as ignorance of ignorance.