Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Quintilian

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Talmud, The

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

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

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

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.

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

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

By the time your life is finished, you will have learned just enough to begin it well.

Marx, Eleanor

10.

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

Saroyan, William

11.

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

Basho, Matsuo

12.

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

Ward, William A.

13.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

14.

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

Kraus, Karl

15.

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

16.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

17.

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

Oprah Winfrey

18.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

19.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

20.

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

Proverb, Chinese

21.

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

Cato The Elder

22.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

23.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

24.

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

25.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

26.

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

27.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

28.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

29.

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

James Boswell

30.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

31.

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

Bouton, E. S.

32.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

33.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

34.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

35.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

36.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

37.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

38.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

39.

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

Talmud, The

40.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

41.

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

Marilyn vos Savant

42.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

43.

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

44.

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

Proverb, Turkish

45.

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

Robbie Gass

46.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

47.

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.

48.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

49.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Confucius

50.

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.

Connolly, Cyril