Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

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

Socrates

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

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

Boileau, Nicholas

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

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

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

10.

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

Confucius

11.

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

Proverb, Spanish

12.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

13.

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

Cheever, John

14.

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

Quintilian

15.

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

16.

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

17.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

18.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

19.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

20.

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

Bible

21.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

22.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

23.

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

24.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

25.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

26.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

27.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

28.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

29.

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

30.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

31.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

32.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

33.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

34.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

35.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

36.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

37.

The days that are still to come are the wisest witnesses.

Pindar

38.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

39.

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

Proverb, Turkish

40.

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.

Adams, James Truslow

41.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Aurelius, Marcus

42.

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

Mencken, H. L.

43.

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

44.

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

Bible

45.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

46.

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

47.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg