Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Azai, Rabbi Ben

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Talmud, The

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

Socrates

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

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

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

James Boswell

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. [9:18b, Ecclesiastes]

Bible

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

10.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

11.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

12.

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

Saroyan, William

13.

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

14.

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

15.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

16.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

Colton, Charles Caleb

17.

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

Larson, Doug

18.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

19.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

20.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

Thurber, James

21.

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

Cato The Elder

22.

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

23.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

24.

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

25.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

26.

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

Mencken, H. L.

27.

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

Basho, Matsuo

28.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

29.

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

Ziggy

30.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

31.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

32.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

33.

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

Twain, Mark

34.

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

Pindar

35.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

36.

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

37.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

38.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

39.

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

Marilyn vos Savant

40.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

41.

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

42.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

43.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

44.

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

45.

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

Marx, Eleanor

46.

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

Quintilian

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 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

49.

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

Aristophanes

50.

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