Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Even though you know a thousand things, ask the man who knows one.

- Proverb, Turkish

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning.

Evans, Bergen

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

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

Carlyle, Thomas

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

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

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

Butler, Samuel

10.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

11.

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

12.

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

Bible

13.

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

Larson, Doug

14.

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

15.

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

16.

The end result of wisdom is... good deeds.

Talmud, The

17.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Blake, William

18.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

19.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

23.

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

Bible

24.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

25.

The live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart.

Bhagavad Gita

26.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

27.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

28.

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

Noll, Chuck

29.

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

Bouton, E. S.

30.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

31.

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

32.

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

Bible

33.

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

Saroyan, William

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

37.

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

Zenrin

38.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

39.

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

James Boswell

40.

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.

41.

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

Thurber, James

42.

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

Kraus, Karl

43.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

44.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.