Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

- Gabirol, Ibn

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

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.

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

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. [9:18b, Ecclesiastes]

Bible

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Blake, William

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

Elizabeth, Queen

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

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

Levenson, Samuel

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

10.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

12.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

13.

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

14.

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

15.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

16.

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

17.

A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.

Noll, Chuck

18.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

19.

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

Buddha

20.

Even though you know a thousand things, ask the man who knows one.

Proverb, Turkish

21.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

22.

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

25.

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

Basho, Matsuo

26.

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

Proverb, Chinese

27.

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.

28.

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

Cullen Hightower

29.

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

30.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd preferred to talk.

Larson, Doug

31.

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

Proverb, Chinese

32.

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

Bible

33.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

34.

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

Cocteau, Jean

35.

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.

Proverb, Camerounian

36.

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

37.

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

Cheever, John

38.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

39.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

40.

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

Oprah Winfrey

41.

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

Bouton, E. S.

42.

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

Bible

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

46.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

47.

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

Zenrin

48.

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

49.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

50.

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