Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Schopenhauer, Arthur

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

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

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

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

Buddha

10.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

11.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

12.

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

Pindar

13.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

14.

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

Talmud, The

15.

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

Levenson, Samuel

16.

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

17.

The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

18.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

19.

Kings may be judges of the earth, but wise men are the judges of kings.

Gabirol, Ibn

20.

Wisdom is knowing when to speak your mind and when to mind your speech.

Evangel

21.

Through wisdom is a house built; and by understanding it is established; and by knowledge shall every room be filled with precious and pleasant riches.

Bible

22.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

23.

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

24.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish

25.

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

Proverb, Chinese

26.

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

27.

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

Young, Andrew

28.

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

29.

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

Ward, William A.

30.

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

31.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

32.

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

Cheever, John

33.

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

Bible

34.

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

35.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

36.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

37.

Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.

Basho, Matsuo

38.

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

39.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

40.

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

42.

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

43.

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

44.

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

Mencken, H. L.

45.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

46.

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.

47.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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

Cullen Hightower