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

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

Saroyan, William

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Shaw, George Bernard

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

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

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

10.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

11.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

12.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

13.

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

Bouton, E. S.

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.

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

Ward, William A.

16.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

20.

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

Aristophanes

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Garbutt, Frank

26.

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

Proverb, Spanish

27.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

28.

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

Pindar

29.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

30.

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

31.

Wise are they who have learned these truths: Trouble is temporary. Time is a tonic. Tribulation is a test tube.

32.

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

Bible

33.

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.

Fitzhenry, R. I.

34.

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

Evans, Bergen

35.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

36.

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

37.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

38.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

39.

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

Quintilian

40.

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Cato The Elder

41.

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

Cocteau, Jean

42.

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

43.

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

44.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Gibran, Kahlil

45.

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

46.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

Socrates

47.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

48.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

49.

A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.

Rowland, Helen

50.

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