Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

- Proverb, African

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

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

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

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

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

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

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

10.

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.

11.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

12.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

13.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

14.

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

15.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

16.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

17.

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd preferred to talk.

Larson, Doug

18.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

19.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

20.

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

Young, Andrew

21.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

22.

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

23.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

24.

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

Garbutt, Frank

25.

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

26.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

27.

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

28.

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

Cato The Elder

29.

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Buscaglia, Leo

30.

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

Cocteau, Jean

31.

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

32.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all your getting get understanding.

Bible

33.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

34.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

35.

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

Bible

36.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

37.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

38.

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

39.

Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

40.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

41.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

42.

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

Cullen Hightower

43.

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

Thurber, James

44.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

45.

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

46.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

47.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

48.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

49.

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.