Javan Quotes

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

Next to being witty, the best thing is being able to quote another's wit.

If nobody said anything unless he knew what he was talking about, a ghastly hush would descend upon the earth.

The well of true wit is truth itself.

Time is the father of truth, its mother is our mind.

Truth is available to the ears that can hear it.

Were one merely to seek information, one should inquire of the man who hates, but if one wishes to know what truly is, one better ask the one who loves.

Listen once in a while. It's amazing what you can hear.

All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.

The banalities of a great man pass for wit.

Words let us say the things we want to say and also things we would be better off not having said. They let us know the things we need to know, and also things we wish we didn't.

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.

Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding.

It is better to understand little than to misunderstand a lot.

Wit consists in knowing the resemblance of things that differ, and the difference of things that are alike.

Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.

Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.

The intelligent man finds almost everything ridiculous, the sensible man hardly anything.