Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Shaw, George Bernard

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

Marilyn vos Savant

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

The end result of wisdom is... good deeds.

Talmud, The

10.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

11.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

12.

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

Ziggy

13.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

14.

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

15.

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

Cocteau, Jean

16.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

17.

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

18.

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

Cheever, John

19.

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

20.

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

21.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

22.

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

Zenrin

23.

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

24.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

25.

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

26.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

27.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

28.

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

Marx, Eleanor

29.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

30.

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

31.

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

32.

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

Ward, William A.

33.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

34.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

35.

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

Bible

36.

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

Mencken, H. L.

37.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

Twain, Mark

38.

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

Robbie Gass

39.

Who is a wise man? He who learns of all men.

Talmud, The

40.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, --something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.

Connolly, Cyril

41.

The wisdom of a learned man comet by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise. [Ecclesiasticus 38:25]

Bible

42.

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

Bible

43.

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

44.

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

Cullen Hightower

45.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

46.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

47.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

48.

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

49.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

50.

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