Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

- Walt Whitman

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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.

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

Bible

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

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

Proverb, Turkish

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Basho, Matsuo

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

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

Confucius

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

10.

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

11.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

12.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

13.

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

14.

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

15.

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

16.

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

17.

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

Noll, Chuck

18.

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

19.

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

Evans, Bergen

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.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

22.

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

23.

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

Larson, Doug

24.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

25.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

26.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

27.

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

Aristophanes

28.

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

29.

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

Bouton, E. S.

30.

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

Quintilian

31.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

Twain, Mark

32.

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

33.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

34.

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

35.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

36.

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

Bible

37.

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

38.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

42.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

43.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

44.

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

45.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top .

46.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

47.

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

48.

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

Cocteau, Jean

49.

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

Cullen Hightower

50.

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