Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Nietzsche, Friedrich

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Talmud, The

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

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

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

Proverb, Spanish

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

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

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

Aristophanes

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

Borland, Hal

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

Watson, Thomas J.

10.

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

James Boswell

11.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Shaw, George Bernard

12.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

13.

Beauty is the wisdom of women. Wisdom is the beauty of men.

Proverb, Chinese

14.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

15.

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

16.

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

17.

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

18.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

19.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

20.

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

Socrates

21.

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.

22.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

Ziggy

23.

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

Robbie Gass

24.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

25.

The greatest event for the world is the arrival of a new and wise person.

Carlyle, Thomas

26.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

27.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

28.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

29.

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

Cocteau, Jean

30.

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

31.

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

Zenrin

32.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

33.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

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

Bible

37.

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

38.

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

Young, Andrew

39.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

40.

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

41.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

42.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

43.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

44.

A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top .

45.

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

Epictetus

46.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

47.

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

Confucius

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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