Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Cheever, John

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Robbie Gass

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant

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

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

Bouton, E. S.

10.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

11.

Many people might have attained wisdom had they not assumed they already had it.

12.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

14.

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

Levenson, Samuel

15.

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

Borland, Hal

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.

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

18.

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

19.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

20.

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

Bible

21.

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

22.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

23.

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

Ward, William A.

24.

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

25.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

26.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all your getting get understanding.

Bible

27.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

28.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

29.

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

30.

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

31.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

32.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

33.

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

34.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

35.

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

36.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

37.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

38.

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

39.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

40.

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

Kraus, Karl

41.

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

Thurber, James

42.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

43.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

44.

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

45.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

46.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

47.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

48.

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

Cheever, John

49.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

Marcel Proust

50.

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