Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

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

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

Larson, Doug

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

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

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

Bible

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

Quintilian

10.

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

Proverb, Chinese

11.

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.

12.

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

Epictetus

13.

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

Levenson, Samuel

14.

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

15.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

16.

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

17.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

18.

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

Talmud, The

19.

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

Proverb, Turkish

20.

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

Noll, Chuck

21.

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

Bible

22.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

23.

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

24.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

25.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

26.

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

27.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

28.

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

Kraus, Karl

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

32.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

33.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

34.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

35.

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

36.

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

Mencken, H. L.

37.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

38.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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.

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

Robbie Gass

41.

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

42.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

43.

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

44.

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

Freud, Sigmund

45.

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

Pindar

46.

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

47.

He swallowed a lot of wisdom, but all of it seems to have gone down the wrong way.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

48.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

49.

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.

Adams, James Truslow

50.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.