Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

- James Boswell

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Bible

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

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

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

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

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

10.

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

Cullen Hightower

11.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

12.

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

Talmud, The

13.

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

14.

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

Marx, Eleanor

15.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

16.

The only thing that we know is that we know nothing and that is the highest flight of human wisdom.

Tolstoy, Count Leo

17.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

18.

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

Socrates

19.

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

Proverb, Spanish

20.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

21.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

22.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

23.

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

24.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

25.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

26.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

27.

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

Talmud, The

28.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

29.

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

30.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

Butler, Samuel

31.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

32.

The man who questions opinions is wise. The man who quarrels with facts is a fool.

Garbutt, Frank

33.

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

Hesse, Hermann

34.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

Proverb, Chinese

39.

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

Bible

40.

Wisdom hath her excesses, and no less need of moderation than folly.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

41.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

42.

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

43.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

44.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

45.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

46.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

47.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

48.

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

Bouton, E. S.

49.

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

50.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.

Smiles, Samuel