Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Aurelius, Marcus

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

Bible

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

Boileau, Nicholas

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed Wisdom. And then I know exactly what is going to follow: Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

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

Evans, Bergen

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

Proverb, Turkish

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

10.

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

11.

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.

12.

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

13.

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

Bible

14.

True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.

Bouton, E. S.

15.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

16.

Some folks are wise and some otherwise.

Billings, Josh

17.

Without wisdom, knowledge is more stupid than ignorance.

18.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

19.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

James Boswell

23.

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

24.

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

Young, Andrew

25.

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

26.

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

Oprah Winfrey

27.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

29.

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

30.

By the time your life is finished, you will have learned just enough to begin it well.

Marx, Eleanor

31.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

32.

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

33.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

Euripides

34.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

35.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

36.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

37.

It is not wise to be wiser than necessary.

Quinault, Philippe

38.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

39.

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

Quintilian

40.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

41.

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

Twain, Mark

42.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

43.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

44.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

45.

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

46.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

47.

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

Confucius

48.

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

49.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

50.

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