Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

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

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Kraus, Karl

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

Watson, Thomas J.

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

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

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

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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.

12.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

Colton, Charles Caleb

13.

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

14.

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

15.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

16.

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

17.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

18.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

19.

Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

20.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

21.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

22.

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.

Evangel

23.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

24.

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.

25.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

26.

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

27.

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

Proverb, Turkish

28.

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

Garbutt, Frank

29.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

30.

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

31.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

Aristophanes

32.

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

Bible

33.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

34.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

35.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

36.

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

Twain, Mark

37.

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

Fitzhenry, R. I.

38.

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

Confucius

39.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

40.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

41.

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

42.

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

Buscaglia, Leo

43.

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

Ziggy

44.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

45.

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.