Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

- Edmund Burke

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite.

Levenson, Samuel

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

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

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

10.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

11.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

12.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

13.

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

Aristophanes

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.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

16.

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

Bible

17.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

18.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

19.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

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

Talmud, The

21.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

22.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Young, Andrew

26.

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

27.

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

Cullen Hightower

28.

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

Cato The Elder

29.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

30.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Edmund Burke

31.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

32.

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

Marilyn vos Savant

33.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

34.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

35.

Many people might have attained wisdom had they not assumed they already had it.

36.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

37.

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

Buscaglia, Leo

38.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

39.

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

40.

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

Evangel

41.

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

42.

The live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart.

Bhagavad Gita

43.

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

Socrates

44.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

45.

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

Bouton, E. S.

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

49.

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.

Proverb, Camerounian

50.

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