Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Quintilian

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Young, Andrew

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

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

Hesse, Hermann

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

The wise man says it cannot be done, but the fool goes and does it.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

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.

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

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

10.

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

11.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

12.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

13.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil -- not the strength to choose between the two.

Cheever, John

14.

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

15.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

16.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

17.

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

Kraus, Karl

18.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

19.

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

Garbutt, Frank

20.

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.

21.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

22.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

23.

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

24.

The greatest event for the world is the arrival of a new and wise person.

Carlyle, Thomas

25.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

26.

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

Proverb, Spanish

27.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

28.

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. [Proverbs 3:13-15]

Bible

29.

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

Pindar

30.

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

31.

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

Proverb, Turkish

32.

Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.

Aristophanes

33.

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

Bible

34.

Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation.

Taylor, Sid

35.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

36.

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Blake, William

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Butler, Samuel

41.

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

42.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius