Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Proverb, Chinese

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 testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. [Psalms 19:7]

Bible

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

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

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

Talmud, The

10.

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

11.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

12.

Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.

Buddha

13.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

14.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

15.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

16.

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

17.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

18.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

19.

Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.

Elizabeth, Queen

20.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

21.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

22.

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

Garbutt, Frank

23.

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

24.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

25.

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

26.

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

Socrates

27.

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

Epictetus

28.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

29.

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

30.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

31.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

32.

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.

33.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Aurelius, Marcus

34.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

36.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

37.

Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God, or several signatures of that one archetypal seal, or like so many multiplied reflections of one and the same face, made in several glasses, whereof some are clearer, some obscurer, some standing nearer, some further off.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

38.

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.

39.

Look at those they call unfortunate and at a closer view, you'll find many of them are unwise.

Young, Andrew

40.

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

Proverb, Chinese

41.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

42.

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

43.

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

44.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

45.

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

46.

Like an ability or a muscle, hearing your inner wisdom is strengthened by doing it.

Robbie Gass

47.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

48.

If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the man who goes back and forth on it.

Zenrin

49.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.