Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Proverb, Turkish

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

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

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Aurelius, Marcus

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 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

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

Marilyn vos Savant

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

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

10.

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

Aristophanes

11.

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

12.

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

13.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Santayana, George

14.

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

Evangel

15.

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

Saroyan, William

16.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

17.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, --something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.

Connolly, Cyril

18.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

19.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

20.

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Buscaglia, Leo

21.

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

Bible

22.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

23.

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

Oprah Winfrey

24.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

25.

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

Watson, Thomas J.

26.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

27.

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

Pindar

28.

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

Bible

29.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

30.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

31.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

32.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

33.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

34.

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

Larson, Doug

35.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

36.

Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God, or several signatures of that one archetypal seal, or like so many multiplied reflections of one and the same face, made in several glasses, whereof some are clearer, some obscurer, some standing nearer, some further off.

Cudworth, Ralph J.

37.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

38.

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

Evans, Bergen

39.

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

40.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

41.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all your getting get understanding.

Bible

42.

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

Confucius

43.

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

44.

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

Zenrin

45.

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

Ward, William A.

46.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

47.

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

48.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

49.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

50.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish