Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Marilyn vos Savant

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

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

Zenrin

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

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

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

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

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

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

Proverb, Spanish

10.

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

11.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

12.

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

Mencken, H. L.

13.

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

Quintilian

14.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

15.

Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.

Buddha

16.

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. [Proverbs 15: 31]

Bible

17.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Nietzsche, Friedrich

18.

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

Blake, William

19.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

20.

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

Talmud, The

21.

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

22.

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

Proverb, Chinese

23.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

24.

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

25.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

26.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

27.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

28.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

29.

When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you life in the wisdom of the Self.

Bhagavad Gita

30.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

31.

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

James Boswell

32.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

33.

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

34.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

35.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

36.

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.

37.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

38.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

39.

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

40.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

41.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

42.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

43.

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

Oprah Winfrey

44.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

48.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

49.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

50.

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