Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Lichtenberg, Georg C.

Best Quotes about Wisdom

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

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

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

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

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

Marilyn vos Savant

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

The testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple. [Psalms 19:7]

Bible

By the time your life is finished, you will have learned just enough to begin it well.

Marx, Eleanor

10.

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

Walt Whitman

11.

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

Bible

12.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

13.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

14.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

15.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

16.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

17.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

18.

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

19.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

20.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

21.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

22.

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

23.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

24.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

25.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

26.

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

Boileau, Nicholas

27.

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

28.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

29.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.

Confucius

30.

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

31.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

32.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

33.

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

34.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

35.

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

Buddha

36.

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

Ward, William A.

37.

The foolish sayings of a rich man pass for wise ones.

Proverb, Spanish

38.

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

39.

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

40.

Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.

Goldsmith, Oliver

41.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

42.

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

43.

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

Cocteau, Jean

44.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

45.

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

46.

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

Oprah Winfrey

47.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

48.

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

49.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

50.

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

Cato The Elder