Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it, thou art a fool.

- Azai, Rabbi Ben

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

Hesse, Hermann

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

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

Evangel

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

Marilyn vos Savant

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

Cheever, John

The greatest event for the world is the arrival of a new and wise person.

Carlyle, Thomas

10.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

11.

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.

Covey, Stephen R.

12.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Shaw, George Bernard

13.

The wise man says it cannot be done, but the fool goes and does it.

14.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Smiles, Samuel

15.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

16.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

17.

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

18.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

19.

A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.

Noll, Chuck

20.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

Aristophanes

21.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Aurelius, Marcus

22.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

23.

Even though you know a thousand things, ask the man who knows one.

Proverb, Turkish

24.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

25.

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

Walt Whitman

26.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

27.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

Saroyan, William

28.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

29.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

30.

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

Epictetus

31.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

32.

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

33.

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

Borland, Hal

34.

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

35.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

36.

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

Maeterlinck, Maurice

37.

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings.

Gabirol, Ibn

38.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd preferred to talk.

Larson, Doug

39.

The man who questions opinions is wise. The man who quarrels with facts is a fool.

Garbutt, Frank

40.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

James Boswell

41.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

Marcel Proust

42.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

43.

Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.

Elizabeth, Queen

44.

The end result of wisdom is... good deeds.

Talmud, The

45.

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

46.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

47.

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

48.

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.

Levenson, Samuel

49.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.