Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Bible

Best Quotes about Wisdom

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

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

James Boswell

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

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month's study of books.

Proverb, Chinese

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

Bible

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

Garbutt, Frank

10.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

11.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

12.

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

Ward, William A.

13.

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

14.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

15.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

16.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

17.

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

18.

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

19.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

Butler, Samuel

20.

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

21.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

22.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

23.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

24.

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

25.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

26.

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

27.

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

Maeterlinck, Maurice

28.

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

29.

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

Larson, Doug

30.

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.

31.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

32.

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

Quintilian

33.

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.

34.

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

Evangel

35.

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

Zenrin

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.

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

Oprah Winfrey

38.

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

39.

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

Noll, Chuck

40.

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

41.

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

Cullen Hightower

42.

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

43.

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

44.

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

Bouton, E. S.

45.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

46.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

47.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

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.

49.

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

Robbie Gass

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