Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Marilyn vos Savant

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Oprah Winfrey

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

Watson, Thomas J.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

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

10.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

11.

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

Cheever, John

12.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

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

Quintilian

14.

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

15.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

16.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

17.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

18.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Bouton, E. S.

22.

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

23.

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

24.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

25.

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

26.

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

Cocteau, Jean

27.

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

28.

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. [Proverbs 3:13-15]

Bible

29.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

30.

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

Bible

31.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

32.

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

33.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

34.

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

Hoffer, Eric

35.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

36.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

37.

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

38.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

39.

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

Garbutt, Frank

40.

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

41.

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.

Levenson, Samuel

42.

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

Thurber, James

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Butler, Samuel

46.

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

Evangel

47.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

48.

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

49.

Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.

Ward, William A.

50.

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