Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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.

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Cullen Hightower

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

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

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

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

10.

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

11.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

12.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

13.

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

14.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

15.

When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you life in the wisdom of the Self.

Bhagavad Gita

16.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

17.

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.

18.

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

Marx, Eleanor

19.

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

20.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

24.

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

Evangel

25.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

26.

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. [Proverbs 15: 31]

Bible

27.

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

28.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

29.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

30.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

32.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

33.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

34.

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

Proverb, Chinese

35.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

36.

Beauty is the wisdom of women. Wisdom is the beauty of men.

Proverb, Chinese

37.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

38.

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

Cato The Elder

39.

Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.

Buddha

40.

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

Evans, Bergen

41.

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

42.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

43.

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

44.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

45.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Ziggy

46.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

47.

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

48.

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

Confucius

49.

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

Aristophanes

50.

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

Kraus, Karl