Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

- Menander

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

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

Galbraith, John Kenneth

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

Confucius

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

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.

Covey, Stephen R.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

Thurber, James

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

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

Socrates

10.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

11.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

12.

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

Buscaglia, Leo

13.

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

Noll, Chuck

14.

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

Pindar

15.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

16.

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

17.

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

Cullen Hightower

18.

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

Bible

19.

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

20.

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

Evans, Bergen

21.

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

22.

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

Bible

23.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

24.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.

James Boswell

25.

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

Oprah Winfrey

26.

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

Proverb, Chinese

27.

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

Quintilian

28.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

32.

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

33.

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

Talmud, The

34.

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

Bible

35.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

36.

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

Ward, William A.

37.

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

38.

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

39.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

40.

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.

41.

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

Buddha

42.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

43.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

44.

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

Mencken, H. L.

45.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

46.

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

47.

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.

Fitzhenry, R. I.

48.

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

49.

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

Proverb, Camerounian

50.

If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the man who goes back and forth on it.

Zenrin