Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

- Saroyan, William

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

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

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

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

Bible

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

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

Cato The Elder

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

Pindar

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

10.

Wisdom is found only in truth.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

12.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil -- not the strength to choose between the two.

Cheever, John

13.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

14.

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

15.

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

16.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

17.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

18.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

19.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

20.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

21.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

22.

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

Proverb, Turkish

23.

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

Watson, Thomas J.

24.

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

Proverb, Chinese

25.

Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.

Butler, Samuel

26.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

27.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

28.

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

Talmud, The

29.

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

Bible

30.

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

31.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

32.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

Saroyan, William

33.

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

34.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

35.

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

Marilyn vos Savant

36.

A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be lead by the nose.

Twain, Mark

37.

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

Buddha

38.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

39.

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

Proverb, Spanish

40.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

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

Thurber, James

42.

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

43.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

44.

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

Confucius

45.

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

Larson, Doug

46.

A wise man never knows all, only fools know everything

Proverb, African

47.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Blake, William

48.

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

Bible

49.

The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.

Aurelius, Marcus

50.

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