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

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

Gabirol, Ibn

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

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

Epictetus

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

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.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

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

Cocteau, Jean

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

10.

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

Evans, Bergen

11.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

12.

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

13.

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

Levenson, Samuel

14.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

15.

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

Aristophanes

16.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

17.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

18.

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

Buddha

19.

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

Pindar

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.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

23.

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

24.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

25.

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

Young, Andrew

26.

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

Bible

27.

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

Proverb, Spanish

28.

The wisest have the most authority.

Plato

29.

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

30.

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

31.

When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you life in the wisdom of the Self.

Bhagavad Gita

32.

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

33.

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

Robbie Gass

34.

The man who questions opinions is wise. The man who quarrels with facts is a fool.

Garbutt, Frank

35.

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

36.

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

Bible

37.

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

Kraus, Karl

38.

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

Boileau, Nicholas

39.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

40.

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

41.

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

42.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

43.

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

44.

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

45.

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

46.

No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, --something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.

Connolly, Cyril

47.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

James, William

48.

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

Butler, Samuel