“Always be nice to bankers. Always be nice to pension fund managers. Always be nice to the media. In that order.”
“To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn't know what to do or that he can't do it on his own.”
“Never give anyone the advice to buy or sell shares, because the most benevolent price of advice can turn out badly.”
“I'm not a teacher: only a fellow-traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead -- ahead of myself as well as you.”
“I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.”
“Number one: Don't frisk me. Don't hurt me physically. Don't get anywhere near my neck. And don't call me Regis. [Advice to his guests]”
“Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.”
“Never play cards with a man called Doc. Never eat at a place called Mom s. Never sleep with a woman whose troubles are worse than your own.”
“I am glad that I paid so little attention to good advice; had I abided by it I might have been saved from some of my most valuable mistakes.”
“I have lived some thirty-odd years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.”
“Generally speaking, when a woman offers unsolicited advice or tries to help a man, she has no idea of how critical and unloving he may sound to him.”
“In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.”
“Consult your friend on all things, especially on those which respect yourself. His counsel may then be useful where your own self-love might impair your judgment.”
“Never advise anyone to go to war or to get married. Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present. He that has no children brings them up well.”
“The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.”
“Great effort is required to arrest decay and restore vigor. One must exercise proper deliberation, plan carefully before making a move, and be alert in guarding against relapse following a renaissance.”
“He that gives good advice, builds with one hand; he that gives good counsel and example, builds with both; but he that gives good admonition and bad example, builds with one hand and pulls down with the other.”
“There is as much difference between the counsel that a friend giveth, and that a man giveth himself, as there is between the counsel of a friend and of a flatterer. For there is no such flatterer as is a man's self.”
“No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.”
“The best advisers, helpers and friends, always are not those who tell us how to act in special cases, but who give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.”
“Your friends praise your abilities to the skies, submit to you in argument, and seem to have the greatest deference for you; but, though they may ask it, you never find them following your advice upon their own affairs; nor allowing you to manage your own, without thinking that you should follow theirs. Thus, in fact, they all think themselves wiser than you, whatever they may say.”
“If one man says to thee, ''Thou art a donkey,'' pay no heed. If two speak thus, purchase a saddle.”
חברך קרייך חמרא אוכפא לגביך מוש
Text: Wikisource Talmud Bavli via Sefaria (CC-BY-SA)
“Aim above morality. Be not simply good, be good for something.”