Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Basho, Matsuo

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

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

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

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.

Galbraith, John Kenneth

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

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

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

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

Freud, Sigmund

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

10.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

11.

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

12.

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

13.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

14.

Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.

Cullen Hightower

15.

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

16.

Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall every room be filled with precious and pleasant riches.

Bible

17.

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

18.

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

19.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

20.

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.

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

24.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

25.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

26.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

27.

What a wonderful world this would be if there were as many wise people as there are clever people.

28.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

29.

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

Quintilian

30.

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

Garbutt, Frank

31.

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

32.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top .

33.

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

Buscaglia, Leo

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

Ward, William A.

37.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

38.

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

39.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

41.

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

Bible

42.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

43.

By the time your life is finished, you will have learned just enough to begin it well.

Marx, Eleanor

44.

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

Kraus, Karl

45.

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

46.

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.

47.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

48.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

49.

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

50.

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