Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Brecht, Bertolt

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

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

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.

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

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

Evangel

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

10.

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

Bible

11.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

12.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

13.

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

Butler, Samuel

14.

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

Quintilian

15.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

16.

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

Oprah Winfrey

17.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

18.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

19.

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

Basho, Matsuo

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

23.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

24.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

25.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

26.

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.

27.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

28.

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

Mencken, H. L.

29.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

30.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

31.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

32.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

33.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

34.

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.

Proverb, Camerounian

35.

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

36.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

37.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

38.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

39.

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

Bouton, E. S.

40.

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

41.

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

Pindar

42.

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

Fitzhenry, R. I.

43.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Noll, Chuck

47.

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

Proverb, Chinese

48.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

49.

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.