Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

- Gabirol, Ibn

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

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

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

Mencken, H. L.

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

Twain, Mark

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Buscaglia, Leo

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

Ziggy

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.

Luther, Martin

10.

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

11.

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

Marilyn vos Savant

12.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

14.

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.

15.

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

Bible

16.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

17.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

18.

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.

Fitzhenry, R. I.

19.

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

20.

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

Socrates

21.

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

22.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

23.

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

24.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

25.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

26.

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

27.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

28.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

29.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

30.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

31.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

32.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top .

33.

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

Cullen Hightower

34.

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

Hoffer, Eric

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

40.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

41.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

42.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

43.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

44.

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

45.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

Basho, Matsuo

46.

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.

47.

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

Zenrin

48.

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

Quintilian

49.

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

50.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.