Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Schopenhauer, Arthur

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

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

James Boswell

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

Pindar

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

Marcel Proust

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

Proverb, Chinese

10.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

11.

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Socrates

12.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

13.

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

14.

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

15.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Confucius

16.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

17.

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

Freud, Sigmund

18.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

19.

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

20.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

21.

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

22.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

23.

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

Cullen Hightower

24.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

25.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

26.

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

Mencken, H. L.

27.

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

28.

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

Talmud, The

29.

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

Bible

30.

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

Proverb, Spanish

31.

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

32.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

33.

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

Quintilian

34.

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

Garbutt, Frank

35.

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

36.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

37.

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.

38.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

39.

Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall every room be filled with precious and pleasant riches.

Bible

40.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

41.

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

Confucius

42.

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

Oprah Winfrey

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

Cocteau, Jean

46.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

47.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

48.

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

49.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

50.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis