We only make a dupe of the friend whose advice we ask, for we never tell him all; and it is usually what we have left unsaid that decides our conduct.
I give myself, sometimes, admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into, the mind.
'Be yourself!' is about the worst advice you can give to some people.
A bull does not enjoy fame in two herds.
The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
Fewer things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example.
The only thing to do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself.
There is little serenity comparable to the serenity of the inexperienced giving advice to the experienced.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
It is well enough, when one is talking to a friend, to lodge in an odd word by way of counsel now and then; but there is something mighty irksome in its staring upon one in a letter, where one ought to see only kind words and friendly remembrances.
Men of much depth of mind can bear a great deal of counsel; for it does not easily deface their own character, nor render their purposes indistinct.
Have more than thou showest, Speak less than thou knowest.
What you don't see with your eyes, don't invent with your tongue.
If you keep your mind sufficiently open, people will throw a lot of rubbish into it.
Don't fight forces; use them.
Drink nothing without seeing it; sign nothing without reading it.
What is important is to keep learning, to enjoy challenge, and to tolerate ambiguity. In the end there are no certain answers.
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail.
You must not think, sir, to catch old birds with chaff.