Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, -- every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

- Marden, Orison Swett

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Pindar

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, --something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.

Connolly, Cyril

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

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

James Boswell

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

Bible

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

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

10.

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

Noll, Chuck

11.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

12.

He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Epictetus

13.

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

Socrates

14.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

15.

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

16.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

17.

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

18.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

19.

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

Proverb, Chinese

20.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

21.

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

Butler, Samuel

22.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

23.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

24.

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

Kraus, Karl

25.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

26.

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

Fitzhenry, R. I.

27.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

28.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

29.

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant

30.

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings.

Gabirol, Ibn

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

34.

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

Cocteau, Jean

35.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

36.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

37.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

38.

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

Bible

39.

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

Proverb, Chinese

40.

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

41.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

42.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

43.

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

Freud, Sigmund

44.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

45.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

Thurber, James

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

49.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

Saroyan, William

50.

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

Aristophanes