Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

- Proverb, Spanish

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

Colton, Charles Caleb

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

Mencken, H. L.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Buscaglia, Leo

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.

Francis of Assisi, St.

10.

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

12.

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.

Evangel

13.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil -- not the strength to choose between the two.

Cheever, John

14.

Many people might have attained wisdom had they not assumed they already had it.

15.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

16.

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

Proverb, Spanish

17.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

18.

He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Epictetus

19.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

20.

Great men are the commissioned guides of mankind, who rule their fellows because they are wiser.

Carlyle, Thomas

21.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

22.

Wise are they who have learned these truths: Trouble is temporary. Time is a tonic. Tribulation is a test tube.

23.

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. [Proverbs 3:13-15]

Bible

24.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. [9:18b, Ecclesiastes]

Bible

25.

Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation.

Taylor, Sid

26.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life -- in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Seneca

27.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

28.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

Twain, Mark

29.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

30.

Wisdom hath her excesses, and no less need of moderation than folly.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

31.

Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

32.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

33.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know -- even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction -- than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.

Asimov, Isaac

34.

Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God, or several signatures of that one archetypal seal, or like so many multiplied reflections of one and the same face, made in several glasses, whereof some are clearer, some obscurer, some standing nearer, some further off.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

35.

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

36.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

37.

The wisdom of a learned man comet by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise. [Ecclesiasticus 38:25]

Bible

38.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Kraus, Karl

39.

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

40.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

41.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Blake, William

42.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

43.

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant

44.

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. [1 Corinthians 3:18-19]

Bible

45.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

46.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books.

Proverb, Chinese

47.

The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

48.

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Socrates

49.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

50.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible