Enduring Wisdom Quotes

The sage has one advantage: he is immortal. If this is not his century, many others will be.

Books themselves need no defense. Their spokesmen come and go, their readers live and die, they remain constant.

[Books] may sleep for a while and be neglected; but whenever the desire of information springs up in the human breast, there they are with mild wisdom ready to instruct and please us.

Books are men of higher stature; the only men that speak aloud for future times to hear.

People perish. Books are immortal.

A Century of Wisdom is universal and will enrich readers for generations to come.

There is a natural rhythm to parent-child interactions, including the fact that some parental insights prove poignant and veridical decades after they were first shared with us.

A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch. Hence it is the greatest paradox in literature, the imperishable in the midst of change, the nourishment which always remains highly valued, as salt does, and never becomes stupid like salt.

But the images of men's wits and knowledges remain in books, exempted from the wrong of time, and capable of perpetual renovation.

A good aphorism is too hard for the tooth of time, and is not worn away by all the centuries, although it serves as food for every epoch.

Nothing endures except truth.

Wisdom doesn't go out of style, even if it's in increasingly short supply.

The question I have is out of all these commencement speeches that are happening, what's the really worthwhile advice that a 21, 22 year old person will walk away from the speech and say, I can apply this maybe five years, 10 years later. How many speeches actually push the button like that, other than yours?

Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to -day as when they first passed through their authors' minds ages ago.

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.

The idea of trying to create things that last - forever knowledge - has guided my work for a long time now.

For deeds to die, however nobly done, And thoughts of men to as themselves decay, But wise words taught in numbers for to run, Recorded by the Muses, live for ay.

Continue to instruct the world; and - whilst we carry on a poor unequal conflict with the passions and prejudices of our day, perhaps with no better weapons than other passions and prejudices of our own - convey wisdom to future generations.

A book lives as long as it is unfathomed.

Whatever has "wit enough to keep it sweet" defies corruption and outlasts all time; but the wit must be of that outward and visible order which needs no introduction or demonstration at our hands.