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

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

Young, Andrew

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

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.

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

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

Cheever, John

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

Thurber, James

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

10.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

11.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

12.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

13.

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

17.

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

Quintilian

18.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

19.

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

20.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

Butler, Samuel

21.

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

Mencken, H. L.

22.

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

23.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

24.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

25.

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

Bible

26.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

27.

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

28.

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

29.

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

Saroyan, William

30.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

31.

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

32.

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

Evans, Bergen

33.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

34.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

35.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

36.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

37.

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

38.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

39.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

40.

He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Epictetus

41.

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

Kraus, Karl

42.

Great men are the commissioned guides of mankind, who rule their fellows because they are wiser.

Carlyle, Thomas

43.

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

Pindar

44.

Inner wisdom is more important than wealth. The more you spend it, the more you gain.

Oprah Winfrey

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.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Nietzsche, Friedrich

47.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

48.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

49.

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

Evangel

50.

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