For those who are low in spirit, the best of what is written and said becomes the worst.
— Hryhoriy Skovoroda
Those who reason most powerfully and are the most successful at ordering their thoughts so as to make them clear and intelligible will always be best able to persuade others of what they say, even if they speak in the thickest of dialects.
Lord, if it be most for thy glory, let me proceed in it; but if thou seest that it will in any wise hinder my usefulness in thy cause, oh prevent my proceeding…all I want, respecting this world, is such circumstances as may best capacitate me to do service for God in the world.
—David Brainerd
The reading of all good books is indeed like a conversation with the noblest men of past centuries who were the authors of them, nay a carefully studied conversation, in which they reveal to us none but the best of their thoughts.
—René Descartes
“There will be bear markets about twice every 10 years and recessions twice every 10-12 years but nobody has been able to predict them reliably.
So the best thing to do is buy when shares are thoroughly depressed and that means when other people are selling.”
— John Templeton
“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”
— Frida Kahlo
“The best way to minimize risk is to think.”
“Think forwards and backwards—invert, always invert. Many hard problems are best solved when they are addressed backward.”
“Get near to Jesus. An hour’s communion with Jesus is the best preparation for teaching either the young or the old.”
In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.
—Sun Tzu
The best answer to a fool is silence.
—Leo Tolstoy
Man’s first law is to watch over his own preservation; his first care he owes to himself; and as soon as he reaches the age of reason, he becomes the only judge of the best means to preserve himself; he becomes his own master.
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Good people will bring you happiness, bad people will reward you with experience, the worst ones will teach you a lesson, and the best ones will give you memories. Appreciate each one.
—Taras Shevchenko
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
—Henry David Thoreau
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
—Marcus Aurelius
If this is the best of possible worlds, what then are the others?
—Voltaire
The best books.. are those that tell you what you know already.
—George Orwell
The best answer to a fool is silence. Every word you speak to a fool bounces back to you. Repaying offense with offense is just putting more wood on the fire, but he who meets his offender with peace has already defeated him with peace itself.
—Leo Tolstoy
“Our best performances are so stained with sin that it is hard to know whether they are good works or bad works.”
— Charles Spurgeon
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
—Henry David Thoreau
Optimism,” said Cacambo, “What is that?” “Alas!” replied Candide, “It is the obstinacy of maintaining that everything is best when it is worst.
—Voltaire
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling.
Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.
—Carl Jung
We should not pretend to understand the world only by the intellect; we apprehend it just as much by feeling.
Therefore, the judgment of the intellect is, at best, only the half of truth, and must, if it be honest, also come to an understanding of its inadequacy.
—Carl Jung
Negative results are just what I want. They’re just as valuable to me as positive results. I can never find the thing that does the job best until I find the ones that don’t.
—Thomas Edison
I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.
—John Milton
My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
—Ernest Hemingway
The best is the enemy of good.
—Voltaire
Solitude sometimes is best society.
—John Milton
The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.
—Fyodor Dostoevsky
The best artist has that thought alone which is contained within the marble shell; only the sculptor’s hand can break the spell to free the figures.
—Michelangelo