Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

Boileau, Nicholas

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

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

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

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

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

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

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.

Luther, Martin

10.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

11.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

12.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

13.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

14.

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

Bible

15.

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

Young, Andrew

16.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

17.

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

18.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

19.

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

20.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

21.

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

Twain, Mark

22.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

23.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Coolidge, Calvin

24.

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

Ward, William A.

25.

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

26.

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

27.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

28.

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

Aristophanes

29.

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

30.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

31.

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.

32.

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

Mencken, H. L.

33.

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

Robbie Gass

34.

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.

Adams, James Truslow

35.

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

36.

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

Oprah Winfrey

37.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

38.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

39.

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

Marx, Eleanor

40.

One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come to terms with everything.

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

41.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

42.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

43.

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

Proverb, Spanish

44.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Ziggy

45.

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

46.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

47.

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.

Evangel

48.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

49.

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