Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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.

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

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

Gabirol, Ibn

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

The live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart.

Bhagavad Gita

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.

Robbie Gass

Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.

Goldsmith, Oliver

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

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

Mencken, H. L.

10.

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.

11.

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

Cheever, John

12.

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

Evans, Bergen

13.

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books.

Proverb, Chinese

14.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

23.

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Blake, William

24.

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

25.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

26.

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

Aristophanes

27.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

28.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

32.

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

Bible

33.

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

Socrates

34.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

35.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

36.

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

37.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

38.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

39.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

40.

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