Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

- Boileau, Nicholas

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

The extreme limit of wisdom --that's what the public calls madness.

Cocteau, Jean

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

Brecht, Bertolt

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

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

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Cato The Elder

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

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

Gabirol, Ibn

10.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

11.

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

Cheever, John

12.

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

Ward, William A.

13.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

14.

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

Confucius

15.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

16.

The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. [Psalms 19:7]

Bible

17.

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

Aristophanes

18.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

19.

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.

20.

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

21.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

22.

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.

Fitzhenry, R. I.

23.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

24.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

25.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

26.

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

Mencken, H. L.

27.

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

Pindar

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Levenson, Samuel

31.

If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the man who goes back and forth on it.

Zenrin

32.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

33.

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

34.

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

35.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

36.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Edmund Burke

37.

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

Evangel

38.

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

39.

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

40.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

41.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

42.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

43.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

44.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

45.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

46.

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

Quintilian

47.

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

Saroyan, William

48.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

49.

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.

50.

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

Bouton, E. S.