The Wisdom of Professor Albus Dumbledore

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"Nitwit! Blubber! Oddment! Tweak!"

"'Ah, music,' he said, wiping his eyes. 'A magic far beyond all we do here! And now, bedtime. Off you trot!'"

"To the well organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

"There are all kinds of courage. It takes a great deal of courage to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."

"I will only truly have left this school when none here are loyal to me... Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it."

"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities."

"We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on."

"You fail to recognize that it matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be."

"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."

"--Witness for the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore."

"'Harry, I owe you an explanation,' said Dumbledore. 'An explanation of an old man's mistakes. For I see now that what I have done, and not done, with regard to you, bears all the hallmarks of the failings of age. Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young...and I seem to have forgotten lately.'"

"Ah, Harry, how often this happens, even between the best of friends! Each of us believes that what he has to say is much more important than anything the other might have to contribute!"

"And now Harry, let us step out into the night and pursue that flighty temptress, adventure."

"In fact, being - forgive me - rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."

"It is important to fight, and fight again, and keep fighting, for only then can evil be kept at bay, though never quite eradicated."

"Don't count your owls before they are delivered."

"From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork."

"'I am not worried, Harry,' said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. 'I am with you.'"

"Do not pity the dead, Harry, pity the living. Above all, pity those who live without love. By returning you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed and fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say goodbye for the present."

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"

"It is a curious thing, Harry, but perhaps those who are best suited to power are those who have never sought it. Those who, like you, have leadership thrust upon them, and take up the mantle because they must, and find to their own surprise that they wear it well."

"Power was my weakness and my temptation."

"That which Voldemort does not value, he takes no trouble to understand. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. That they all have a power beyond his own, a power beyond the reach of any magic, is a truth he has never grasped."