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 beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

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

Talmud, The

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Gibran, Kahlil

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

Saroyan, William

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

10.

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

11.

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

12.

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.

Hoagland, Edward

13.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

Bacon, Francis

14.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

15.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

16.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

17.

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

Twain, Mark

18.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning.

Evans, Bergen

20.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

21.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

22.

The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.

Pindar

23.

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

Hoffer, Eric

24.

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

Aristophanes

25.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

26.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

27.

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. [Proverbs 15: 31]

Bible

28.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

29.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

30.

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

31.

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

Buscaglia, Leo

32.

Who is a wise man? He who learns of all men.

Talmud, The

33.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

34.

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.

35.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

36.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

37.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

38.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

39.

A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.

Rowland, Helen

40.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

41.

A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.

Machiavelli, Niccolo

42.

There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.

Luther, Martin

43.

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.

44.

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

Bible

45.

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.

46.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

47.

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

48.

True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.

Bouton, E. S.

49.

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

50.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus