Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

- Gabirol, Ibn

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

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

Talmud, The

The end result of wisdom is... good deeds.

Talmud, The

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

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

Bible

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

Bible

10.

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

11.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

12.

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

Quintilian

13.

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

Young, Andrew

14.

He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.

Epictetus

15.

A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.

Rowland, Helen

16.

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

17.

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

18.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

19.

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

20.

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

21.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

22.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

23.

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

Kraus, Karl

24.

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.

25.

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.

26.

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

Levenson, Samuel

27.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

28.

Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall every room be filled with precious and pleasant riches.

Bible

29.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

30.

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

Elizabeth, Queen

31.

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

32.

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

33.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

34.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

35.

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

36.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

37.

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

Evans, Bergen

38.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

39.

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

Oprah Winfrey

40.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

41.

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

Buddha

42.

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

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

43.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

44.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

45.

The wise man says it cannot be done, but the fool goes and does it.

46.

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

Ward, William A.

47.

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

48.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

49.

When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you life in the wisdom of the Self.

Bhagavad Gita

50.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De