Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Garbutt, Frank

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

Aristophanes

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

Oprah Winfrey

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning.

Evans, Bergen

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

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

Cheever, John

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

10.

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

Bouton, E. S.

11.

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

Proverb, Spanish

12.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

13.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

14.

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

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

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

Bible

19.

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

20.

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Cato The Elder

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

24.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

25.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

26.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

27.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

28.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

29.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

30.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

31.

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

32.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

33.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

34.

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

35.

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

Cullen Hightower

36.

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

37.

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

Basho, Matsuo

38.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

39.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

40.

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

41.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

42.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

43.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

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

45.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

46.

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

Blake, William

47.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

48.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

49.

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

50.

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

Kraus, Karl