Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

- Basho, Matsuo

Best Quotes about Wisdom

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go hey, I'm Vine Man.

Handey, Jack

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

When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you life in the wisdom of the Self.

Bhagavad Gita

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

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

Blake, William

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Look at those they call unfortunate and at a closer view, you'll find many of them are unwise.

Young, Andrew

10.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

11.

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

Watson, Thomas J.

12.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

13.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

14.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

15.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

16.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

17.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

18.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

19.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

21.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

22.

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

23.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

24.

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

Cheever, John

25.

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

26.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Confucius

27.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

James Boswell

29.

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

30.

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, -- every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

Marden, Orison Swett

31.

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.

Adams, James Truslow

32.

Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.

Ward, William A.

33.

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.

34.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

Basho, Matsuo

35.

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.

36.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

37.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

38.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

39.

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.

Proverb, Camerounian

40.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

41.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

42.

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

Bible

43.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

44.

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

45.

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.

46.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

47.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Coolidge, Calvin

48.

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

49.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

50.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De