Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Socrates

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

Young, Andrew

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

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

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

Bible

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.

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

Brecht, Bertolt

10.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

11.

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

12.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

13.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

14.

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

15.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

16.

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

Cullen Hightower

17.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

18.

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

19.

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

Bible

20.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

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

Quintilian

22.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Kraus, Karl

23.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

24.

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

25.

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

Cocteau, Jean

26.

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

Garbutt, Frank

27.

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

Mencken, H. L.

28.

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

Bible

29.

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

30.

Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.

Buddha

31.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

32.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

33.

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

34.

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.

Sophocles

35.

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

37.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

38.

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

39.

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

40.

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

Twain, Mark

41.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

42.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

43.

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go hey, I'm Vine Man.

Handey, Jack

44.

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

45.

The wisdom of a learned man comet by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise. [Ecclesiasticus 38:25]

Bible

46.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

47.

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