Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Talmud, The

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

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

Cocteau, Jean

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

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

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

Socrates

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

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 fool who persists in his folly will become wise.

Blake, William

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor vexation. Where there is poverty and joy, there is neither greed nor avarice. Where there is peace and meditation, there is neither anxiety nor doubt.

Francis of Assisi, St.

10.

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

Proverb, Turkish

11.

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.

12.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

13.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

14.

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

Twain, Mark

15.

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

Buddha

16.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

17.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Kraus, Karl

18.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

19.

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

20.

Society cannot exist unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere, and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

Edmund Burke

21.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

22.

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

23.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

24.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

25.

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

Ziggy

26.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

27.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

31.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

32.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

33.

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

Basho, Matsuo

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of your times.

Bible

37.

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

James Boswell

38.

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all your getting get understanding.

Bible

39.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

40.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

41.

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. [1 Corinthians 3:18-19]

Bible

42.

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

Young, Andrew

43.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

44.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

45.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

46.

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

47.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of face within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.

Coolidge, Calvin

48.

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

Proverb, Spanish

49.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

50.

A nation's treasure is its scholars.

Proverb, Yiddish