Philosophical Wisdom

I'd like expand my knowledge of famous and not so famous philosophical wisdom and ideas.

I would, therefore like to get some of that from you, so post wisdom and ideas by the great philosophers or thinkers, but please no 'internet/general quotes'.

I am interested in genuine philosophical ideas - and please state who said what.

Currently, I am really interested in Kafka.

A few compressed philosophical concepts.

Man fears the darkness, and so he scrapes away at the edges of it with fire.
- Hideaki ANNO

Words are the bullets of truth. Poets are it's snipers.
- Dan Simmons (paraphrased)

Only a small part is played in great deeds by any hero.
- J.R.R.Tolkien

And finally one promoting thought over proverbs and quotes.

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
- Leo Rosten

Excellent stuff, SC. Thanks!

Probably my three favorites...

"The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine."
-- J. B. S. Haldane

"Of all manifestations of power, restraint impresses men the most."
-- Thucyclides

"Of all sad words of tongue and pen the saddest are these, what might have been."
-- John Greenleaf Whittier