Wisdom Quotes

We have collected and put the best Wisdom Quotes. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

May these Wisdom Quotes inspire you to never give up and keep working towards your goals. Who knows—success could be just around the corner.

Wisdom is the ability to think and act with knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight.

Wisdom is being true to our inner self – thus bringing harmony and peace into our lives. It’s discovering a new idea or solution that meets everyone’s needs. Wisdom is also honoring people and caring about their rights. It is reflected in the courtesy with which we treat others. Enjoy the following wisdom.

Wisdom waits. – Gary

Wisdom never lies. – Homer

Wisdom begins in wonder. – Socrates

Wisdom is not wordy. – Gary Amirault

Wisdom is oftimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar. – William Wordsworth

Wisdom outweighs any wealth. – Sophocles

Wisdom sails with wind and time. – John Florio

Wisdom at times is found in folly. – Horace Mann

Wisdom begins at the end. – Daniel Webster

Wisdom is a sacred communion. – Victor Hugo

Wisdom grows in quiet places. – Austin O’Malley

Wisdom is important in every man’s life. – Rza

Wisdom comes only through suffering. – Aeschylus

Wisdom comes alone through suffering. – Aeschylus

Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences. – Plato

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability. – Plautus

Wisdom comes by disillusionment. – George Santayana

Wisdom’s door is ever open. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness. – Sophocles

Wisdom is knowing when you can’t be wise. – Paul Engle

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength. – Phil Jackson

Wisdom is the daughter of experience. – Leonardo da Vinci

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains. – Francis Quarles

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. – Charles Spurgeon

Wisdom is wisdom, wherever found. – G. David Nordley

Wisdom is the wealth of emotional intelligence. – Sajid Khan

Wisdom may best arise from a humbling reality. – Michael Leunig

Wisdom thoroughly learned, will never be forgotten. – Pythagoras

Wisdom is easy to carry but difficult to gather. – Czech Proverb

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. – William Cowper

Wisdom is found only in truth. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wisdom is not copyrighted. You have to become it. – Samuel Avital

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has. – Josh Billings

Wisdom is mostly the fruit of experience. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom adorneth riches and casteth a shadow over poverty. – Socrates

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next. – Herbert Hoover

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences. – Norman Cousins

Wisdom is also a deeper consciousness of ignorance. – Austin O’Malley

Wisdom is often counted folly by the unwise. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone. – Horace Mann

Wisdom hears one thing and understands three things. – Chinese Proverb

Wisdom is a good purchase, though we pay dearly for it. – Dutch Proverb

Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation. – Sara Teasdale

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it. – David Starr Jordan

Wisdom is knowing the right path to take. Integrity is taking it. – Anonymous

Wisdom is the lost property of the believer. – Muhammad: The Last Prophet

Wisdom teaches us to live content upon a bone gnawed bare. – Abraham Miller

Wisdom is at all times the least burdensome traveling pack. – William Camden

Wisdom is a treasure, the key whereof is never lost. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom has always been the wealth of the common people. – Raimon Pannikar

Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeated all things. – Heraclitus

Wisdom and knowledge are the most valuable things in the body. – Masayoshi Son

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions. – Gerald Brenan

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one’s being. – Orison Swett Marden

Wisdom is the first and mother of all stocks for the market maker. – Jimanze Ego-Alowes

Wisdom and deep intelligence require an honest appreciation of mystery. – Thomas Moore

Wisdom is to live in the present, plan for the future and profit from the past. – Anonymous

Wisdom is understanding when to ask questions. – Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wisdom never comes to those who believe they have nothing left to learn. – Charles de Lint

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it. – Albert Einstein

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use. – Thomas J. Watson

Wisdom is first and foremost needed to discern when to speak, and when not to. – Rene Camilleri

Wisdom is a safe ship; and we may trust ourselves to it in all weathers. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom. – Terry Pratchett

Wisdom makes but a slow defense against trouble, though at last a sure one. – Oliver Goldsmith

Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it. – Doug Larson

Wisdom casts a more sparkling color than the ruby, it makes us shine as angels. – Thomas Watson

Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself. – Tom Wilson

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two. – John Cheever

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not. – Leonid Andreyev

Wisdom is a gift but has nothing to do with age. That was probably the case with me. – Ruby Bridges

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk. – Doug Larson

Wisdom comes from experience, experience can be accelerated through short iterations. – Naval Ravikant

Wisdom is supreme, therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have – get understanding. – Proverbs 4:7

Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love. – Honore De Balzac

Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future. – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

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

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; Skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it. – David Starr Jordan

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two. – John Cheever

Wisdom comes from within. Knowledge is acquired and can sometimes put a screen on your wisdom. – R. Rahman

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as knowing what to do next. – Herbert Hoover

Wisdom is ever fresh; other things grow stale, but this is the evergreen flower of nature. – Edward Albert Counsel

Wisdom is inconceivable apart from something about which it can be called into operation. – Sabine Baring-Gould

Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late. – Felix Frankfurter

Wisdom is the olive that springeth from a heart, bloometh on the tongue, and beareth fruit in the actions. – Grymestone

Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values. – Sidney Hook

Wisdom is using your knowledge to see opportunities, risks, challenges and the things that you need to do. – John Brennan

Wisdom consists, not in seeing what is directly before us, but in discerning those things which may come to pass. – Terence

Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone. – John Burroughs

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival. – Thomas Jefferson

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself. – Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom is a strange thing; you learn to fight for what you can achieve and give up on the things that are impossible. – Ray Williams

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents. – Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom is achieved by keeping an open mind and a closed mouth. Ignorance is exposed by having an open mouth and a closed mind. – Jim Stovall

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. A constant coming and going: wisdom lies in the momentary. – Octavio Paz

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. – Abigail Adams

Wisdom is the perception of the unimportance of the things we call great, and of the importance of the things we call small. – Charles Edward Jerningham

Wisdom and understanding can only become the possession of individual men by travelling the old road of observation, attention, perseverance, and industry. – Samuel Smiles

Wisdom is a power that allows one to stay on the fountainhead. Fountainhead signifies the origin of water. God is the origin of the living water. – Joshua Choonmin Kang

Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life. – Hermann Karl Hesse

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools. Wisdom cannot be passed 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

Wisdom is not words written in some book. Wisdom is a costly acquisition. It comes from personally paying the price for one’s actions. It is iterated learning from years of experience. – The Ancient Sage

Wisdom alone is true ambition’s aim, wisdom is the source of virtue and of fame; obtained with labour, for mankind employed, and then, when most you share it, best enjoyed. – Alfred North Whitehead

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions. – Eckhart Tolle

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. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wisdom allows nothing to be good that will not be so forever; no man to be happy but he that needs no other happiness than what he has within himself; no man to be great or powerful that is not master of himself. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wisdom is knowledge that is guided by understanding; we have to have the wisdom and the knowledge to understand why certain things happen in our lives and trust that God will lead us over any obstacles that comes in our way. – Anonymous

Wisdom is the only thing which can relieve us from the sway of the passions and the fear of danger, and which can teach us to bear the injuries of fortune itself with moderation, and which shows us all the ways which lead to tranquility and peace. – Cicero

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom. – Charles Spurgeon

Wisdom is less about academic intelligence, cognitive abilities or analytical skills, although these can help significantly. Instead, wisdom refers to the ability to see the “big picture” and translate one’s experience and knowledge into good judgment and decisions. – David Chan

Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish…. Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. – Hermann Karl Hesse

Wisdom is seen to come from God; indeed, it is seen to have a divine quality itself. The Bible encourages people of faith to seek wisdom. It is important to do whatever it takes to gain wisdom, because those who were wise were seen to be closer to God, because they were seen as having the Spirit of God within them. – Kenneth Taylor

Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. It’s not something you do just to advance in life. Wisdom acquisition is a moral duty. As a corollary to that proposition which is very important, it means that you are hooked for lifetime learning. And without lifetime learning, you people are not going to do very well. You are not going to get very far in life based on what you already know. You’re going to advance in life by what you learn after you leave here. – Charlie Munger

Wisdom, in biblical terms, is not simply the accumulation of information. Rather, it encompasses the practical knowledge of how to regulate one’s relationship with God, prudence in dealing with others, judiciousness in the handling of circumstances and skill or expertise in the application of knowledge to the diverse areas of life. Wisdom is such an important theme in Scripture that in the book of Proverbs the very voice of God is personified as wisdom, and Christ himself, in Paul’s letters, is described as the one in whom are hid all treasures of wisdom and knowledge. NOT ASHAMED, “Wisdom and government”, Christian Concern, January 27, 2016

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

A blind person who sees is better than a seeing person who is blind. – Iranian Proverb

A cardinal rule in budgeting and saving is to pay yourself first. Once your paycheck hits your account, wisdom has it that you should move some amount to savings even before you pay the bills. – John Rampton

A charming woman… doesn’t follow the crowd. She is herself. – Loretta Young

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. – Albert Einstein

A closed mouth catches no flies. – Miguel de Cervantes

A crown’s no cure for a headache. – English Proverb

A day of worry is more exhausting than a week of work. – John Lubbock

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

A fool is known by his speech; and a wise man by silence. – Pythagoras

A fool is wise in his eyes. – King Solomon

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. – William Blake

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool. – William Shakespeare

A generous man forgets what he gives and remembers what he receives. – Old Proverb

A good friend is precious, even more precious is a wise good friend. – V. Ashiedu

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination. – Nelson Mandela

A good memory is surely a compost heap that converts experience to wisdom, creativity, or dottiness; not that these things are of much earthly value, but at least they may keep you amused when the world is keeping you locked away or shutting you out. – Michael Leunig

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise. – John Henry Newman

A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune. – Horace Mann

A kind person is very wise, because they – consciously or unconsciously – have realised what it is all about: that what we do to our fellows, we also do to ourselves. Stefan Einhorn

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle. – Khalil Gibran

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men. – Roald Dahl

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right. – Thomas Paine

A lot of people tell me a lot of things about my conduct, my game, my future… but I try to stay away from their words of wisdom. I don’t let it distract me. On the field, you will be facing the ball alone. If you fail, you will the only one to blame. So, you should be the one deciding for yourself. – Virat Kohli

A lot of wisdom is just realizing the long-term consequences of your actions. The longer term you’re willing to look, the wiser you’re going to seem to everybody around you. – Naval Ravikant

A loving heart is the truest wisdom. – Charles Dickens

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew. – Herb Caen

A man doesn’t begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes he is no longer indispensable. – Richard E. Byrd

A man has made at least a start on discovering the meaning of human life when he plants shade trees under which he knows full well he will never sit. – David Elton Trueblood

A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise. – Buddha

A man may learn wisdom even from a foe.b

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them. – John C. Maxwell

A man should always consider how much he has more than he wants. – Joseph Addison

A man’s wisdom is his best friend; folly, his worst enemy. – Sir William Temple

A mistake is simply another way of doing things. – Katharine Graham

A monarchy conducted with infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence is the most perfect of all possible governments. – Ezra Stiles

A morsel of genuine history is a thing so rare as to be always valuable. – Thomas Jefferson

A mouse does not rely on just one hole. – Plautus

A musical, like most religions, provides the audience or followers with a sense of belonging. Religious services, on the other hand, with their staged performances, invigorating songs, popular wisdom and shared experience, are almost a form of community theater. – Lisa Randall

A new broom sweeps clean but an old broom knows the corners. – Virgin Islander Proverb

A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read. – Mark Twain

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. – Robert Frost

A promise made is a debt unpaid. – Robert W. Service

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. – American Proverb

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom. – Lord John Russell

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. – Francis Bacon

A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow. – Charlotte Bronte

A short saying often contains much wisdom. – Sophocles

A significant part of showing respect is simply listening. We offer our presence and open ears – listening to the hidden hurts and heartaches, the deepest dreams and desires of one another. – Rick Warren

A simple realization that there are other points of view is the beginning of wisdom. – Grenville Kleiser

A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. – Viktor E. Frankl

A thoughtful person said (so I have read)
It isn’t easy to apologize,
It isn’t easy when all hope has fled
To keep on going, but it’s very wise. – Wilhelmina Stitch

A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love. – Saint Basil

A very wise woman, Eleanor Roosevelt, famously once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” Truly dwell on the wisdom of that philosophical statement for a moment. – Ian Tuhovsky

A weak reaction is to rush things. A strong reaction is to go slow and steady. Maxime Lagacé

A whetstone is no carving instrument,
And yet it maketh sharp the carving tool;
And if you see my efforts wrongly spent,
Eschew that course and learn out of my school;
For thus the wise may profit by the fool,
And edge his wit, and grow more keen and wary,
For wisdom shines opposed to its contrary. – Geoffrey Chaucer

A wise man … proportions his belief to the evidence. – David Hume

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer. – Bruce Lee

A wise man is out of the reach of fortune. – Thomas Browne

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. – Moliere

A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion. – Chinese Proverb

A wise man never loses anything, if he has himself. – Michel de Montaigne

A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it were real, so he escapes suffering. – Buddha

A wise owl sat on an oak, the more he saw the less he spoke, the less he spoke the more he heard. Why aren’t we like the wise old bird? – Charles M Schulz

A wise person decides slowly but abides by these decisions. – Arthur Ashe

A word from the wise – from those who have had experience in life – is far more valuable than many realize. If we are wise we will take it and make use of it, thus saving ourselves much time and grief. – Dorothea S. Kopplin

A word to the wise isn’t as good as a word from the wise. – Grenville Kleiser

Above all, you must fight conceit, envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. – Abraham Cahan

Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise. – Heraclitus

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, wisdom is the “Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct” and “sound judgement”. My goodness, think if wisdom were a modern concept, regularly practiced, how much less shocking news we would have every day! If only celebrities didn’t make such silly displays of themselves on late-night television shows; if tourists didn’t insist on taking naked selfies on sacred mountains; if Justin Bieber could only behave like a sensible young man; if politicians were once again filled with serious integrity. Then our lives would not be spinning out of control with nonsense. What if Donald Trump had the wisdom to keep his mouth shut? What if scientists realize that just because they can create robot soldiers doesn’t mean they should? – Dorothy Turcotte

Action should culminate in wisdom. – Bhagavad Gita

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Advice for nearly everything: start slowly and maintain traction. – Michael on Twitter

After a gig I always head back to the hotel, remembering granny’s words of wisdom. I cancel the late-night pizza and watch the Jonathan Ross show instead. – Jimmy Carr

After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory. – Charles Spurgeon

After the knowledge of, and obedience to, the will of God, the next aim must be to know something of His attributes of wisdom, power, and goodness as evidenced by His handiwork. – James Prescott Joule

Age is a terrible avenger. The lessons of life give you so much to work with, but by the time you’ve got all this great wisdom, you don’t get to be young anymore. – Elizabeth Wurtzel

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people. – James A. Garfield

All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope. – Alexandre Dumas

All human wisdom works and has worries and grief as reward. – Johann Georg Hamann

All life is an experiment. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes. – Winston Churchill

All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people. – Alexis Carrel

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost. – J.R.R. Tolkien

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. – Edmund Burke

All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom. – Maimonides

All things must come to the soul from its roots, from where it is planted. – Saint Teresa of Avila

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man. – Henry David Thoreau

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them. – Galileo Galilei

All wisdom consists in this, not to think that we know what we do not know. – Houng Wou, attributed

All’s well that ends well. – John Heywood

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it. – George Santayana

Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom. – Euripides

Although it has been said by men of more wit than wisdom, and perhaps more malice than either, that women are naturally incapable of acting prudently, or that they are necessarily determined to folly, I must by no means grant it. – Mary Astell

Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else. – Judy Garland

Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. – Phil Jackson

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment. – Morihei Ueshiba

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity. – Og Mandino

An educator is not merely a giver of information; he is one who points the way to wisdom, to truth. Truth is far more important than the teacher. The search for truth is religion, and truth is of no country, of no creed, it is not to be found in any temple, church or mosque. Without the search for truth, society soon decays. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion. – Horace Mann

An intelligent man believes only half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half. – Evan Esar

An ounce of cheerfulness is worth a pound of sadness to serve God with. – Thomas Fuller

And I love that even in the toughest moments, when we’re all sweating it – when we’re worried that the bill won’t pass, and it seems like all is lost – Barack never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise. Just like his grandmother, he just keeps getting up and moving forward… with patience and wisdom, and courage and grace. – Michelle Obama

And I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face. – Venerable Bede

And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice. – Joseph Story

And reason teaches all mankind who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or possessions. – John Locke

Anger is the most impotent of passions. It affects nothing it touches and hurts the one who is possessed by it more than the one against whom it is directed. – Claredon

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass. – Joseph Addison

Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it. – Henry David Thoreau

Appearances are often deceiving. – Aesop

Applause is a receipt, not a bill. – Dale Carnegie

Arrogance diminishes wisdom. – Arabian Proverb

Art is never finished, only abandoned. – Leonardo Da Vinci

As a society, we come up lacking in many of the marks of compassion and wisdom by which we measure ourselves as civilized. – Greg Boyle

As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death. – Leonardo Da Vinci

As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend. – King Solomon

As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

As we work to reweave the strands of connection, we can be supported by the wisdom and loving kindness of others. – Sharon Salzberg

As you simplify your life, the laws of the Universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness. – Henry David Thoreau

As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round. – Ben Hogan

As you walk in God’s divine wisdom, you will surely begin to see a greater measure of victory and good success in your life. – Joseph Prince

At DonorsChoose.org, we believe that classroom teachers often know their students better than anybody else in the system and that their front-line experience gives them a special kind of wisdom. – Charles Best

At least two thirds of our miseries spring from human stupidity, human malice and those great motivators and justifiers of malice and stupidity, idealism, dogmatism and proselytizing zeal on behalf of religious or political idols. – Aldous Huxley

At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge? – Jonas Edward Salk

At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly. – Mason Cooley

Attitude, to me, is more important than money. It is more important than the future, the past, education, circumstances, failure, success, it is even more important than what other people think or say. – Brad Hanson

Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control. And it didn’t have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed. – Joe Strummer

Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it. – Colin Powell

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen. – Carl Sandburg

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

Be as you wish to seem. – Socrates

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. – Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

Be kind and virtuous, you’ll be blest and wise. – Benjamin Franklin

Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them, since you cannot even make yourself as you wish to be. – T. A. Kempkis

Be there a will, and wisdom finds a way. – George Crabbe

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error. – Charles Caleb Colton

Be wise before the storm. – Edward Albert Counsel

Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise. – Francis Quarles

Be wiser than other people, if you can; but do not tell them so. – Lord Chesterfield

Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying. – Johannes Tauler

Because you are women, people will force their thinking on you, their boundaries on you. They will tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go. Don’t live in the shadows of people’s judgement. Make your own choices in the light of your own wisdom. – Amitabh Bachchan

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you quit, try. – Ernest Hemingway

Before you speak, listen. Before you write, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you invest, investigate. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try. Before you retire, save. Before you die, give. – William A. Ward

Being a philosopher is to think, seek wisdom, and have principles that guide and influence what you do. It’s to give meaning to things, find your way in the world, believe that in the end, in every instance, good will overcome evil, even if there’s a bit of suffering along the way. – Andrea Pirlo

Being a survivor doesn’t mean being strong – it’s telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It’s paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors. – Bernie Siegel

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise. – Sigmund Freud

Believe not everything, but only what is proven: the former is foolish, the latter the act of a sensible man. Fools are shaped by the gifts of chance, but those who understand these things, by the gifts of wisdom. – Democritus

Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings—that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide. – Buddha

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials. – Lin Yutang

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own. – Aesop

Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone. – Baltasar Gracian

Better than the strength of men and horses is our wisdom. – Xenophanes

Better to be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own. – Aesop

Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out. – Iris Murdoch

Beware of a leader who doesn’t have scars or walk with a limp. One of the characteristics of a great leader is wisdom, and the best way to get wisdom is through experience. Normally that experience includes a few failures — that’s where battle scars and limps come from. – Ingar Grev

Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance. – George Bernard Shaw

Beware, so long as you live, of judging men by their outward appearance. – Jean de La Fontaine

Big money is not a good thing for a little soul: it will only ensnare his feet, and he will fall to his ruin. Wealth is safe only for those who have a wealth of wisdom. – Edwin Markham

Big-picture thinkers are comfortable with ambiguity. They don’t try to force every observation or piece of data into pre-formulated mental cubby holes. – John C. Maxwell

Blessed are they who seek to learn wisdom. – Ezra Taft Benson

Blessed are those who give without remembering and take without forgetting. – Elizabeth Bibesco

Blessed is the man who, having nothing to stay, abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact. – George Eliot

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought – asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation. – William Butler Yeats

Books are the ever burning lamps of accumulated wisdom. – George William Curtis

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more. – Elizabeth Hardwick

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell

Both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom: the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. – Epicurus

But life is long. And it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion. – Sylvia Plath

But the Wisdom of God, which is His only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of change or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential, and such as cannot be changed and converted, His glory is therefore declared to be pure and sincere. – Origen

But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. – Edmund Burke

But what I’ve discovered over time is that some of the wisest people I know have also been some of the most broken people. – James Prescott

By desiring little, a poor man makes himself rich. – Democritus

By the time you’ve reached your sixties, you do know that one day you will die, and knowing that is at least the beginning of wisdom. – Terry Pratchett

By the way, you want to live your life in such a way that the friend(s) you turn to know that you would do the same for them, if the situation were reversed! – Wally Amos

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest. – Confucius

By three things the wise person may be known. What three? He sees a shortcoming as it is. When he sees it, he tries to correct it. And when another acknowledges a shortcoming, the wise one forgives it as he should. – Buddha

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom. – Victor Hugo

Champions invariably have fervent philosophical beliefs. Philosophy, in its simplest terms, means ‘the love of wisdom.’ – Zig Ziglar

Change brings freshness.The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from the old ones. – John Maynard Kynes

Children also have artistic ability, and there is wisdom in there having it! The more helpless they are, the more instructive are the examples they furnish us; and they must be preserved free of corruption from an early age. – Paul Klee

Christian, learn from Christ how you ought to love Christ. Learn a love that is tender, wise, strong; love with tenderness, not passion, wisdom, not foolishness, and strength, lest you become weary and turn away from the love of the Lord. – Saint Bernard

Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom. – Alice Walker

Cleverness is like a lens with a very sharp focus. Wisdom is more like a wide-angle lens. – Edward de Bono

Cleverness is not wisdom. – Euripides

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. – John Muir

Combine the extremes, and you will have the true center. – Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel

Come, come, leave business to idlers, and wisdom to fools: they have need of ’em: wit be my faculty, and pleasure my occupation, and let father Time shake his glass. – William Congreve

Commitment is an act, not a word. – Jean-Paul Sartre

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom. – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Common sense is genius dressed in its working clothes. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Complexity is enemy of execution. – Tony Robbins

Consider this point. It is a main point of true wisdom. Whenever there is an execution of purpose, there must be an agent. – Adoniram Judson

Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them. – Gabriel Marcel

Contrary to popular wisdom, the mark of a great meeting is not how short it is or whether it ends on time. The key is whether it ends with clarity and commitment from participants. – Patrick Lencioni

Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom. – Walter Benjamin

Cultivate the habit of early rising. It is unwise to keep the head long on a level with the feet. – Henry David Thoreau

Cunning is seeing a hundred yards ahead–wisdom, fifty miles in advance. – Charles William Day

Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom. – Plato

Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say ‘no.’ But saying ‘yes’ begins things. Saying ‘yes’ is how things grow. – Stephen Colbert

Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom. – Clifford Stoll

Deal with the faults of others as gently as your own. – Chinese Proverb

Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go. – Jean de La Fontaine

Death smiles at us all, but all a man can do is smile back. – Marcus Aurelius

Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience. – Evelyn Underhill

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – H. L. Mencken

Desires are brought to live depending on one’s wisdom. Wisdom gives direction to desires. – Takuan Soho

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment. – Jim Rohn

Discipline is wisdom and vice versa. – M. Scott Peck

Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it. – Rene Descartes

Do not be wise in words be wise in deeds. – Jewish Proverb

Do now what your future you will thank you for. Maxime Lagacé

Do what you will, withdraw to the mountains, sit in a forest, you cannot live in isolation. You can live only in relationship, and as long as relationship is not understood, there can be no right action. Right action comes in understanding relationship, which reveals the process of oneself. Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, it is a field of affection, warmth, and love, therefore a field rich with flowers. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

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

Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion; it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers; it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred. – Bertrand Russell

Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. – John D. Rockefeller

Don’t even try to become, just be. – Anonymous

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold. – Bob Marley

Done is better than perfect. – Sheryl Sandberg (Facebook)

Don’t aspire to be in these shoes. Walk in your own. Everyone’s unique, and that’s what makes people exciting to watch. . . savor what you are and not what everyone else wants you to be. – Sandra Bullock

Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise. – Joan Rivers

Don’t gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold. – Bob Marley

Don’t taunt the alligator until after you’ve crossed the creek. [couldn’t resist including this one: it’s wise and commonsensical, though not really about wisdom as such] – Dan Rather

Don’t waste your time with explanations, people only hear what they want to hear. – Paulo Coelho

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. – Benjamin Franklin

Doubt is the origin of wisdom. – Augustine of Hippo

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom. – Charles Caleb Colton

During the Arab Spring, I learned all sorts of things from Twitter. I wouldn’t necessarily trust that information, but it gave me ideas about questions to ask. You can really learn things from the wisdom of crowds. – Nicholas Kristof

During the long process of history, by relying on our own diligence, courage and wisdom, Chinese people have opened up a good and beautiful home where all ethnic groups live in harmony and fostered an excellent culture that never fades. – Xi Jinping

Each of us experiences defeats in life. We can transform defeat into victory if we learn from life’s whuppings. – Les Brown

Each of us finds his unique vehicle for sharing with others his bit of wisdom. – Ram Dass

Each of us has been put on earth with the ability to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the world if we don’t use that ability as best we can. – George Allen, Sr.

Each of us knows all. We need only open our minds to hear our own wisdom. – Dan Brown

Each step, each strain of the eye
Opens out a new horizon;
And every day throws in our way
Something new, to grow more wise on. – Robert Leighton

Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. – Benjamin Franklin

Earth has no balm that can cure the loneliness of the human spirit. – Billy Graham

Earthly wisdom is doing what comes naturally. Godly wisdom is doing what the Holy Spirit compels us to do. – Charles Stanley

Economy is the wealth of the poor and the wisdom of the rich. – French Proverb

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all. – Aristotle

Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel. – Socrates

Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom. – Jean Giraudoux

Ending poverty calls for humility, honesty, freedom from ideology and refusal to accept cruel simplicities about anyone’s human potential. It requires listening to the wisdom and cutting the nonsense from both the Right and the Left. – Donella Meadows

Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones. – Seneca

Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if it kept its mouth shut. – Korean Proverb

Even by common wisdom, there seem to be both people and objects in my dream that are outside myself, but clearly they were created in myself and are part of me, they are mental constructs in my own brain. – Ray Kurzweil

Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there. – Will Rogers

Even when we lose our way, wisdom never leaves us. And when we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that our relationship with and faith in wisdom is all we need to live a life rich with meaning, purpose, and joy, it gets simpler. – Michael Neill

Even when you have doubts, take that step. Take chances. Mistakes are never a failure – they can be turned into wisdom. – Cat Cora

Even wisdom has to yield to self-interest. – Pindar

Even youngish men can acquire wisdom as time goes by. – John Bercow

Eventually, we reach the point where we start to realize that we are not going to find peace, contentment, happiness, strength, fearlessness – all of the things that in our heart of hearts we wish we had – outside of us. – Guy Finley

Every day, every birthday candle I blow out, every penny I throw over my shoulder in a wishing well, every time my daughter says, ‘Let’s make a wish on a star,’ there’s one thing I wish for: wisdom. – Rene Russo

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it. – George Orwell

Every journey that is successful has culs-de-sac and speed bumps. I carry a wisdom gene through my life through the good, the bad, and the ugly. – Peter Guber

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit. – Elbert Hubbard

Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself. – Henry David Thoreau

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors. – James Madison

Every one in the world ought to do the things for which he is specially adapted. It is the part of wisdom to recognize what each one of us is best fitted for, and it is the part of education to perfect and utilize such predispositions. Because education can direct and aid nature but can never transform her. – Maria Montessori

Every person on earth has something to contribute, and that wisdom is a shared reality. – Elad Nehorai

Every silver lining has a cloud. – Mary Kay Ash

Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it’s filled with wisdom. Sometimes it’s filled with feet. – Robert Orben

Everyone is a prisoner of his own experiences. No one can eliminate prejudices—just recognize them. – Edward R. Murrow

Everyone talks about how, in your 30s, all of these growing pains transition into wisdom and you feel more self-assured and confident, but I think I had a bit of a jump-start on that at 27. – Solange Knowles

Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait. – Leo Tolstoy

Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it. – Rabindranath Tagore

Everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and necessity. – Democritus

Everything important always begins from something trivial. – Donald Hall

Everything in moderation. – Anonymous

Everything in the world may be endured except continual prosperity. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves. – Carl Jung

Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it. – Aristotle

Except for the grace of God, I would be nobody – and that grace is the opposite of merit – human labour, education or human wisdom. – B. Joshua

Except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power. – Rene Descartes

Experience – the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced. – Ambrose Bierce

Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained. – Joseph Roux

Experience is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you. – Aldous Huxley

Experience is the only prophecy of wise men. – Alphonse de Lamartine

Experience, travel. These are an education in themselves. – Euripides

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

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor. – Truman Capote

Faith gives us strength and reassurance and leaves us bathed in the wisdom that we are never alone. – Debbie Ford

Faith in God includes faith in God’s timing. – Neal A. Maxwell

Fast thinking looks cool but it’s deep thinking that makes all the difference. And deep thinking is always slow thinking. – The Ancient Sage

Fear cannot be without hope nor hope without fear. – Baruch Spinoza

Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed. – Michael Pritchard

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell

Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter:
To what shall their rarity be likened? What prices shall count their worth?
Perfect, and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches,
No lovely thing on earth can picture their fair beauty.
They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion. – Martin Farquhar Tupper

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action. – Thomas Babington Macaulay

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

First appearance deceives many. – Ovid

First of all, to understand truth you must stand alone, entirely and wholly alone. No Master, no teacher, no guru, no system, no self-discipline will ever lift for you the veil which conceals wisdom. Wisdom is the understanding of enduring values and the living of those values. No one can lead you to wisdom. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Focus on the mind and the soul. Read. Study. Enrol in a course of lectures. Pray. Become a member of a religious congregation. Study the Bible or other ancient works of wisdom. – Jonathan Sacks

‘Focusing’ is no conventional repackaging of self-help wisdom. It is at once a manual and a philosophy. It talks about the body’s wisdom, the steps of the focusing technique, how to discover the richness in others by learning to listen. – Marilyn Ferguson

Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself. – Oprah Winfrey

Folly is like the growth of weeds, always luxurious and spontaneous; wisdom, like flowers, requires cultivation. – Hosea Ballou

Foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. – Witold Gombrowicz

Fools ignore complexity. Geniuses remove it. – Alan Perlis

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called ‘wisdom’… I can’t fathom my own heart. – Michael Caine

For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone. – Audrey Hepburn

For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

For me, a sense of prosperity often comes with less rather than more. – Lori Hill

For most of us, wisdom is acquired in the thicket of experience and usually meets us somewhere along the way if we live long enough. But sooner is better than later. – Jackson Brown, Jr.

For myself, I think that those who cultivate wisdom and believe themselves able to instruct their fellow-citizens as to their interests are least likely to become partisans of violence. They are too well aware that to violence attach enmities and dangers, whereas results as good may be obtained by persuasion safely and amicably. – Xenophon

For the Holy Ghost blesses us with optimism and wisdom at times of challenge that we simply cannot muster on our own. – Sheri L. Dew

For the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom. – John Webster

For those of you who pray, I ask that you pray that I will always judge with wisdom and integrity as a faithful servant of the law. – Charles T. Canady

For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. – Proverbs 8:11

Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. – Jim Rohn

From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own. – Publilius Syrus

Frugality includes all the other virtues. – Cicero

Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate. – Friedrich Schiller

Full oft we see
Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly. – William Shakespeare

Gaining wisdom is a wonderful thing. Giving it back is better. – Michael Bell

Genius is eternal patience. – Michelangelo

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration. – Thomas A. Edison

Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun. – Franz Grillparzer

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat forever. – Chinese Proverb

Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world. – Archimedes

Give me a lever long enough, and a place to stand, and I will move the earth. – Archimedes

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. – Abraham Lincoln

Giving opens the way for receiving. – Florence Scovel Shinn

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. – Reinhold Niebuhr

God has already done everything He’s going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you’re going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family. – Joel Osteen

God in His wisdom has decided that He will reward no works but His own. – Johannes Tauler

God knows and sees all. His wisdom and knowledge far outweighs mankind, and whether or not people ever recognize it – He is the creator. He is the giver of life, and only He has the power to take it away. That’s why its imperative to submit to Him. – Monica Johnson

God the Father, the supreme Architect, had already built this cosmic home we behold, the most sacred temple of His godhead, by the laws of His mysterious wisdom. – Giovanni Pico della Mirandola

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other. – Reinhold Niebuhr

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment. – Will Rogers

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it. – Henry Ward Beecher

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. – Plato

Gray hairs are signs of wisdom if you hold your tongue, speak and they are but hairs, as in the young. – Rabindranath Tagore

Great is the number of those who might attain true wisdom if they did not already think themselves wise. – Eliza Cook

Great wisdom is generous; petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous. – Zhuangzi

Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom. – Rumi

Habit is the nursery of errors. – Victor Hugo

Habit, if not resisted, soon becomes necessity. – Saint Augustine

Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul. – Democritus

Happy is the man who finds wisdom and the man who gains understanding. – Anonymous

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester. – Francis Quarles

Hatred is corrosive of a person’s wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation’s spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society’s tolerance and humanity, and block a nation’s progress to freedom and democracy. – Liu Xiaobo

Have you ever wondered exactly what wisdom is? Nowadays, most people don’t think about it at all. It’s a rather old-fashioned concept, yet one that we need in this modern age, probably more than ever…. After all, aren’t our senators intended to be wise older people who have the good judgement to take a sober second look at legislation before it finally becomes law? Today’s news makes us wonder how that concept has become lost in political hubris. – Dorothy Turcotte

He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom. – James Huneker

He gossips habitually; he lacks the common wisdom to keep still that deadly enemy of man, his own tongue. – Mark Twain

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has. – Epictetus

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose. – Jim Elliot

He that always gives way to others will end in having no principles of his own. – Aesop

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom. – J. R. R. Tolkien

He that can compose himself is wiser than he that composes books. – Benjamin Franklin

He that composes himself is wiser than he that composes a book. – Benjamin Franklin

He that respects himself is safe from others. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

He was a wise man who invented beer. – Plato

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich. – Evelyn Waugh

He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become at sixty as wise as he thought himself at twenty. – Mary Wilson Little

He who does wrong does wrong against himself. He who acts unjustly acts unjustly to himself, because he makes himself bad. – Marcus Aurelius

He who flees at the right time can fight again. – Marcus Trentius Varro

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how. – Friedrich Nietzsche

He who is not just is severe, he who is not wise is sad. – Voltaire

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father’s wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father’s care. – William Penn

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know. – Lao Tzu

He who learns must suffer, and, even in our sleep, pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God. – Aeschylus

He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass. – Edgar Fiedler

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. – Marcus Aurelius

He who loses money, loses much; He who loses a friend, loses much more; He who loses faith, loses all. – Eleanor Roosevelt

He who overreaches will, in his overreaching, lose what he possesses, betray what he has now. – Euripides

He who understands the wise is wise already. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

He who would begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin. – Horace Mann

He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise. – Quintus Ennius

Health is better than wealth. – Anonymous

He’s a Fool that cannot conceal his Wisdom. – Benjamin Franklin

History is filled with tragic examples of wars that result from diplomatic impasse. Whether in our local communities or in international relations, the skillful use of our communicative capacities to negotiate and resolve differences is the first evidence of human wisdom. – Daisaku Ikeda

History is written by the victor. – Latin Proverb

History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives. – Abba Eban

Holy wisdom confounds Satan and all his wickednesses. – Francis of Assisi

Honesty is the best policy. – Benjamin Franklin

Honesty is the first book of wisdom. – Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. – Thomas Jefferson

Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain’t lawful tender for a loaf of bread. – Josh Billings

How much better to get wisdom than gold, to get insight rather than silver! – Proverbs 16:16

How poor is the wisdom of men, and how uncertain their forecast! – Saint Teresa of Avila 

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise! – Homer

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

However great an evil immorality may be, we must not forget that it is not without its beneficial consequences. It is only through extremes that men can arrive at the middle path of wisdom and virtue. – Wilhelm von Humboldt

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so. – Douglas Adams

Humanity’s legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: ‘He/she was born, lived, died.’ Probably that is the template of our stories – a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds. – Doris Lessing

I acknowledge the privilege of being alive in a human body at this moment, endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts, and the space of mind in its wisdom aspect. – Alex Grey

I actually don’t think that I’m that much smarter than anybody else. It’s just that I frequently just seem to know what to do, and I think that’s wisdom. – Ben Carson

I actually think with age comes some level of wisdom. – Nina Totenberg

I always felt called to serve, to empower and ennoble as many people as I could, teaching, truth-telling, exposing lies, bearing witness, and being willing to live and die for something bigger than yourself. I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. – Cornel West

I always see where I didn’t do things the right way. I only see the heavy lifting. That’s a bit of my wisdom, if you want to call it that. – Vera Wang

I always want to be a messenger, a person that, you know, that’s not afraid to pass on wisdom. – Mary J. Blige

I am deeply impressed with the gravity and wisdom with which most federal judges approach the responsibility of sentencing. It is a difficult, soul-searching task at best. – Robert Kennedy

I am not one who was born in the custody of wisdom; I am one who is fond of olden times and intense in quest of the sacred knowing of the ancients. – Gustave Courbet

I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals. – Buddha

I am not too much into political awareness, but I had known a lot about Indira Gandhi’s strong persona. Obviously, she had a powerful personality and a lot of clarity and wisdom to rule India for so long. – Kirti Kulhari

I am profoundly indebted to the legacy of Wilhelm Reich, whose monumental contribution to the understanding of energy was taught to me by Philip Curcurruto, a man of simple wisdom and compassionate heart. – Peter A. Levine

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing. – Socrates

I am thinking of taking a fifth wife. Why not? Solomon had a thousand wives and he is a synonym for wisdom. – John Barrymore

I associate wisdom and grace with age. – Christy Turlington

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I believe the continually advancing Information Revolution will lend us the wisdom and strength to address humanity’s previously unsolvable problems and help us make a positive impact on all of society. – Masayoshi Son

I believe the reason we sleep is not just to allow our body to rest but that it is to allow this inner wisdom to speak to us through symbols. This includes the body or somatic problems as well as psychological ones. Dreams and drawings are useful in diagnosing physical conditions. – Bernie Siegel

I cannot teach you, only help you to explore yourself, nothing more. – Bruce Lee

I consider wisdom supernatural because it isn’t taught by men – it’s a gift from God. – Joyce Meyer

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean. – Socrates

I didn’t get where I am today by worryin’ about how I’d feel tomorrow. – Ron White

I do believe in simplicity. It is astonishing as well as sad, how many trivial affairs even the wisest thinks he must attend to in a day; how singular an affair he thinks he must omit. When the mathematician would solve a difficult problem, he first frees the equation of all incumbrances, and reduces it to its simplest terms. So simplify the problem of life, distinguish the necessary and the real. Probe the earth to see where your main roots run. – Henry David Thoreau

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance. – Thomas Carlyle

I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. – Galileo Galilei

I don’t think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life. – Elizabeth Gilbert

I don’t believe in a golden mean; I don’t believe you find policy wisdom between two polar points. I don’t dismiss that possibility, but I look at the platform that’s so ideologically based, that’s so dismissive of facts, of evidence, of science, and it’s frankly hard to take seriously. – Thomas E. Mann

I don’t have the strength or wisdom to get through a single day without guidance and grace from God. – Tony Dungy

I don’t know that you’re able to measure your aggregate wisdom as you go through life. I can’t say that I ever feel that I’m sitting on top of a growing mound of wisdom. – Dylan Moran

I don’t think anybody who has any wisdom regrets a minute of their life, as long as it takes you to the next minute, when things get a little better, and even when it doesn’t. – Allan Gurganus

I don’t think you can come into your wisdom until you have made mistakes on your own skin and felt them in reality of your own life. – Elizabeth Gilbert

I don’t want to share my wisdom, because my wisdom is going to lead you the wrong way. But if you allow me to share God’s wisdom, and if that’s what you want, I can help you. – Bill Neal

I feel blessed – I am a woman who has been able to work in the entertainment business for five decades. I don’t want to age, but I would never take back a year for the wisdom I’ve gained in that time. – Marie Osmond

I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals. – Brigitte Bardot

I had a bunch of people who kinda looked out for me. You know, gave me the words of wisdom. – Mark Henry

I had more energy at 50. On the other hand, at 75, I’ve probably got a little more wisdom and good judgment than I had at 50 because I’ve got more experience. But I haven’t really changed. I’m still driven by the same philosophy. – Ted Turner

I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. – Lao Tzu

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge. – Igor Stravinsky

I have no agenda except to be funny. Neither I or the writers profess to offer any worldly wisdom. – Julia Louis-Dreyfus

I have seen life from the top down and the bottom up. I know how it looks both ways. And I know there is wisdom and that there is hope. – Ron Hubbard

I have sympathy for young people, for their growing pains, but I balk when these growing pains are pushed into the foreground, when you make these young people the only vehicles of life’s wisdom. – Wislawa Szymborska

I have the responsibility of over four million people, and I am in a position to do good, to be able to bring about a new life for my people, and I will continue to move in that direction. It’s a burden, but it needs to be done, and you have to have the courage and wisdom to see it through. – Abdullah II of Jordan

I have tried at every point to seek God’s wisdom on the decisions I made, and I made it my business to speak up on behalf of the things God tells us are important to Him. – Jesse Helms

I haven’t any wisdom – just a child like everybody else. I’m not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright. – Philip Johnson

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be. – Thomas Jefferson

I imagine God to be like my father. My father was always the voice of certainty in my life. Certainty in the wisdom, certainty in the path, certainty always in God. For me God is certainty in everything. Certainty that everything is good and everything is God. – Yehuda Berg

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship. – Pietro Aretino

I know more about what it’s like to be elderly and infirm and kind of stupid, the way you get forgetful, but on the other hand I’m a littler, wiser, dare we say? The word ‘wisdom’ has kind of faded out of our vocabulary, but yeah, I’m a little wiser. – John Updike

I know that inner wisdom is more precious than wealth. The more you spend it, the more you gain. – Oprah Winfrey

I learned some valuable lessons about the legislative process, the importance of bipartisan cooperation and the wisdom of taking small steps to get a big job done. – Hillary Clinton

I listen to the older people who talk to me. I call them my old heads, people with a lot of wisdom. They’ll teach you a lot if you listen. – Stefon Diggs

I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose. – John F. Kennedy

I love being. There’s so much wisdom in it. You wake up in the morning and you think, Hey, isn’t it great just being? – Gwyneth Paltrow

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you. – Maya Angelou

I not only use all the brains that I have but all that I can borrow. – Woodrow Wilson

I praise loudly. I blame softly. – Catherine the Great

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom. – Anatole France

I see a wiser person than when I was younger: having babies, and passing 30, were the turning points. What women in their 40s – I am 39 – lack in gorgeousness, they make up for in wisdom. I love ageing, despite the drawbacks – thinner, drier skin. – Thandie Newton

I sought my father in the world of the black musician, because it contained wisdom, experience, sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years, I was interested in the music of men. – Eric Clapton

I think I got a lot of life skills; I got a lot of wisdom; I’ve seen a lot of bad things happen to a lot of good people. – Young Jeezy

I think I’d be a very good dad, and I think I’d have a lot of wisdom to share. – Craig David

I think it’s nice to age gracefully. OK, you lose the youth, a certain stamina and dewy glow, but what you gain on the inside as a human being is wonderful: the wisdom, the acceptance and the peace of mind. It’s a fair exchange. – Cherie Lunghi

I think people get confused about who Merlin is. It’s not his age that makes him: it’s wisdom, and wisdom is not necessarily linked to age. Definitely not in the same way in the world of ‘Once Upon a Time.’ – Elliot Knight

I think that we have a great opportunity to impart our wisdom and our knowledge and our experience to this younger generation. It may be different times, but experience transcends time, and wisdom transcends time. – Victoria Osteen

I think we are evolving rapidly into one world culture. It’s certainly one world economy. With billions of people online, I think we’ll appreciate the wisdom in many different traditions as we learn more about them. People were very isolated and didn’t know anything about other religions 100 years ago. – Ray Kurzweil

I think we do need to try to not just rely on the central bank to, in its wisdom, adjust interest rates, but allow for people to avoid being exposed to inflation risk. – Robert J. Shiller

I think we perhaps are, with sleep, where we were with smoking about 50 years ago, in that we had all of the science, and it was right there for the public discussion, but it’s not yet adequately sort of percolated out into policy or even just public wisdom. – Matthew Walker

I think with experience and age, you gain knowledge and wisdom. – Nick Foles

I think; therefore I am. – Rene Descartes

I try to be very smart and use wisdom about everything. – Sage Northcutt

I understand that there’s a certain energy in youth, no question, in terms of pursuing jobs. But there is wisdom in age. It’s too bad that the two can’t come together because I do think that people are dropped from what they’re really good at too soon. – Rene Russo

I used to think I was going to die wise, and now, the one wisdom I have is I know very little. – Mary Steenburgen

I want to dip my foot in some acting. And most definitely want to mentor upcoming artists and give them the wisdom that was given to me. – Missy Elliott

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise. – John Keats

I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail. – Muriel Strode

I would rather be a man of paradoxes than a man of prejudices. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

I’m not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there; it’s like relaxing into – and an acceptance of – things. – Tina Turner

I’d rather regret the things I’ve done than regret the things I haven’t done. – Lucille Ball

If a million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing. – Anatole France

If everything is going well in my life then I start to read the papers more and I start to worry about everything I can’t deal with. They say wisdom is knowing what you can fix and what you can’t change. I’m very unwise. – Josh Hartnett

If fortune favors you do not be elated; if she frowns do not despond. – Ausonius

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom. – George Byron

If I could conceive it possible that this universe were governed by a wisdom no greater than I am able to comprehend, I should not be able to believe in a God of infinite wisdom; for finite wisdom cannot comprehend infinite wisdom. – Lyman Abbott

If I don’t have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance. – Leo Buscaglia

If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world. – Antonin Scalia

If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries. – Maimonides

If money is your hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability. – Henry Ford

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all. – Michelangelo

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise. – William Butler Yeats

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. – William Blake

If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be. – Yogi Berra

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. – Frederick Douglass

If to live is to progress, if you are lucky, from foolishness to wisdom, then to write novels is to broadcast the various stages of your foolishness. – Jane Smiley

If we believe in a God at all, we must surely ascribe to him perfection of wisdom and perfection of goodness; we are then forced to conceive of Him – however strange it may sound to those who believe, not only without seeing but also without thinking – as without will, because He must always necessarily pursue the course which is wisest and best. – Annie Besant

If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner. – Omar N. Bradley

If we drink from the fountain of wisdom,
We thirst for its waters e’ermore. – Ardelia Cotton Barton

If we have built on the fragile cornerstones of human wisdom, pride, and conditional love, things may look good for a while, but a weak foundation causes collapse when storms hit. – Charles Stanley

If we talk about ‘Groundhog Day’ as a humanistic text – we only have one life, and there’s no punishment or reward afterwards – then the wisdom is, just be kind because that will make you happy and the people around you happy. – Tim Minchin

If we work in marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble into dust; but if we work upon immortal minds and instill into them just principles, we are then engraving upon tablets which no time will efface, but will brighten and brighten to all eternity. – Daniel Webster

If you are not willing to risk the usual, you will have to settle for the ordinary. – Jim Rohn

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe. – Lord Salisbury

If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements. – Mason Cooley

If you can’t explain it to a six year old, you don’t understand it yourself. – Albert Einstein

If you command wisely, you’ll be obeyed cheerfully. – Thomas Fuller

If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. – Rollo May

If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. – Malcolm X

If you don’t understand yourself you don’t understand anybody else. – Nikki Giovanni

If you don’t know where you are going, any road will get you there. – Lewis Carroll

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain. – Maya Angelou

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum. – Holly Near

If you have the insight of non-self, if you have the insight of impermanence, you should make that insight into a concentration that you keep alive throughout the day. Then what you say, what you think, and what you do will then be in the light of that wisdom and you will avoid making mistakes and creating suffering. – Thich Nhat Hanh

If you keep on saying things are going to be bad, you have a good chance of being a prophet. – Isaac Bashevis Singer

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. – Abraham Maslow

If you really look closely, most overnight successes took a long time. – Steve Jobs

If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing. – Margaret Thatcher

If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart. – Nelson Mandela

If you treat a sick child as an adult and a sick adult as a child, it usually works out pretty well.– Black Hawk

If you want a thing done well, do it yourself. – Napoleon Bonaparte

If you want to be found stand where the seeker seeks. – Sidney Lanier

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots. If you want to change the visible, you must first change the invisible. – T. Harv Ecker

If you want to go east, don’t go west. – Ramakrishna

If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink. – Sophocles

If you wish to reach the highest, begin at the lowest. – Publilius Syrus

If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. – Michael Jordan

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without. – Henry David Thoreau

Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction. – Sam Walton (Wal-Mart)

I’ll come to you with gifts of knowledge, wisdom and truth. – Barry White

I’m a member of the 1960s generation. We didn’t have any wisdom. – J. O’Rourke

I’m exploring the maturity, the wisdom that just comes from having gone around the sun 50 times. My experience is, ‘Oh, I’m never really going to get it right. I’m never going to get it done. But that’s not the point here.’ The point is the journey. – Melissa Etheridge

I’m not a mom, but I think the word ‘mother’ is about wisdom. – Margaret Cho

I’m not wise, but the beginning of wisdom is there; it’s like relaxing into – and an acceptance of – things. – Tina Turner

I’m now the elder in the position of doling out wisdom and trying to mend fences. – Jane Fonda

I’m very accepting with my age. It’s like notches on your belt: experience, wisdom, and a different kind of beauty. There comes a day when you’ve become comfortable in your skin. – Zoe Saldana

Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, ‘Just watch!’ – Bill Bradley

Imagination is more important than knowledge. – Albert Einstein

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head. – Arthur Schopenhauer

In an active life is sown the seed of wisdom; but he who reflects not, never reaps. – Edward Young

In bad things be slow; in good things be fast. – Afghan Proverb

In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don’t let your eyes deceive you. – Janet Jackson

In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don’t try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present. – Lao Tzu

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks. – John Muir

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by. – Lucille Ball

In most cases, a year older is a good thing. More wisdom, more experience, and less damns given. – Amanda Seales

In much wisdom is much grief. – Ecclesiastes 1:18

In my definition of consciousness, consciousness is the same thing as life. What wisdom traditions also call spirit. – Deepak Chopra

In my experience, nothing has taught me more than the failures I’ve experienced–because they gave me wisdom to understand what to do differently next time. – Donald Chestnut

In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what’s behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand. – Trent Reznor

In my own personal life, God plays a great role in the risk, because I pray before I go into the operating room for every case, and I ask him to give me wisdom, to help me to know what to do – and not only for operating, but for everything. – Ben Carson

In order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature. – Bruce Lee

In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance. – Theodore Dreiser

In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. – Thomas Huxley

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it – thou art a fool. – Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

In simple manners all the secret lies. Be kind and virtuous, you’ll be blest and wise. – Benjamin Franklin

In societies where mature workers are respected and where their wisdom is respected, everybody benefits. Workers are more engaged and productive. Their health is better. They live longer. – Deepak Chopra

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action. – Louis D. Brandeis

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity. – Sun Tzu

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause. – George Eliot

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration. – Ansel Adams

In your 20s you can be pretty, but you don’t accomplish real beauty until you find wisdom and depth. – Evangeline Lilly

In youth and beauty, wisdom is but rare! – Homer

In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. Reading – even browsing – an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. Patience is a virtue, gluttony a sin. – James Gleick

Innocence dwells with wisdom, but never with ignorance. – William Blake

Intuition is the wisdom formed by feeling and instinct – a gift of knowing without reasoning… Belief is ignited by hope and supported by facts and evidence – it builds alignment and creates confidence. Belief is what sets energy in motion and creates the success that breeds more success. – Angela Ahrendts

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom. – Anatole France

Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others? – Voltaire

It belongs to human nature to hate those you have injured. – Tacitus

It doesn’t matter how much wisdom you have. If you don’t have position, you have nothing. That’s the tragedy of India. – Rahul Gandhi

It has become part of the accepted wisdom to say that the twentieth century was the century of physics and the twenty-first century will be the century of biology. – Freeman Dyson

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important. – Arthur Conan Doyle

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. – Henry David Thoreau

It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it. – John Steinbeck

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish. – Aeschylus

It is a remarkable fact in the political history of man that there is scarcely an instance of a free constitutional government which has been the work exclusively of foresight and wisdom. They have all been the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances. – John C. Calhoun

It is a wise father that knows his own child. – William Shakespeare

It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better. – Ella Maillart

It is always the simple that produces the marvelous. – Amelia Barr

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods. – Margaret Fuller

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own. – William Inge

It is because the old have forgotten life that they preach wisdom. – Philip Moeller

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. – Herman Melville

It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what’s left? – Jim Carrey

It is better to rust out than wear out. – Edwin Markham

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things. – Henry David Thoreau

It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience. – Roger Ascham

It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom. – Dee Hock

It is far better to give work that is above a person, than to educate the person to be above their work. – John Ruskin

It is good even for old men to learn wisdom. – Aeschylus

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

It is human nature to think wisely and act foolishly. – Anatole France

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life. – Epicurus

It is impossible to love and to be wise. – Francis Bacon

It is like the seed put in the soil – the more one sows, the greater the harvest. – Orison Swett Marden

It is much more difficult to measure nonperformance than performance. – Harold S. Geneen

It is necessary to take what is common as our guide; however, though this logic is universal, the many live as if each individual has his own private wisdom. – Heraclitus

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

It is not hoary hairs that bring wisdom; some have an old head on young shoulders. – Menander

It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. – Seneca

It is not who is right, but what is right, that is of importance. – Thomas Huxley

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law. – Thomas Hobbes

It is plain to me that our prelates, in granting indulgences, do commonly blaspheme the wisdom of God. – John Wycliffe

It is said that wisdom lies not in seeing things, but seeing through things. – Manly P. Hall

It is the mind that maketh good or ill, That maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor. – Michel de Montaigne

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them. – Epictetus

It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary. – Richard Whately

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. – Mahatma Gandhi

It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you. – Phillips Brooks

It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn’t have it, to fear and suspect the worst. – Desiderius Erasmus

It is wisdom to think upon anything before we execute it. – Plautus

It is wiser to find out than to suppose. – Mark Twain

It isn’t right to judge strength as better than good wisdom. – Xenophanes

It isn’t what you do, but how you do it. – John Wooden

It may almost be a question whether such wisdom as many of us have in our mature years has not come from the dying out of the power of temptation, rather than as the results of thought and resolution. – Anthony Trollope

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. – Walter Lippmann

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.’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein

It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously. – Logan Pearsall Smith

It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them. – Paulo Coelho

It’s wisdom to recognize necessity, when all other courses have been weighed, though as folly it may appear to those who cling to false hope. – J. R. R. Tolkien

It’s a beautiful thing, the blossoming of Wisdom. Like a flower in spring. – Michael Rudd

It’s a horrible idea that God, this paragon of wisdom and knowledge, power, couldn’t think of a better way to forgive us our sins than to come down to Earth in his alter ego as his son and have himself hideously tortured and executed so that he could forgive himself. – Richard Dawkins

It’s better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life. – Elizabeth Kenny

It’s easier to resist at the beginning than at the end. – Leonardo da Vinci

It’s not the having, it’s the getting. – Elizabeth Taylor

It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters. – Epictetus

It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see. – Henry David Thoreau

It’s one thing to really dream and have a vision and want all these cool things, but it’s a whole other thing when you actually have wisdom and understand things. Then you can truly make the best decisions. – Ciara

It’s received wisdom that the English are uniquely child-unfriendly. – Julie Burchill

It’s surprising how much wisdom every man possesses — if not for his own affairs, then for the affairs of others. – Evan Esar 

It’s the little details that are vital. Little things make big things happen. – John Wooden

It’s very hard to know what wisdom is. – James Hillman

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. – Sigmund Freud

Just as a fire is covered by smoke and a mirror is obscured by dust, just as the embryo rests deep within the womb, wisdom is hidden by selfish desire. – Bhagavad Gita

Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue. – Buddha

Just because something is common sense doesn’t mean it’s common practice. – Anonymous

Just the simple act of sharing wisdom is something that many parents have left to society to do; however, that is not what God teaches in His word. – Monica Johnson

Kabbalah is all about change. It isn’t about being proud of our good qualities: the wisdom is about transforming our darkness into light. – Yehuda Berg

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. – Kahlil Gibran

Keep well; that is the half of wisdom and of happiness. – Emile Zola

Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom. – Theodore Isaac Rubin

Kindness is wisdom. – Philip James Bailey

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom. – E. E. Cummings

Knowing how to make a banana pudding is knowledge, but wisdom is knowing if others appreciate your efforts. – Larry Efird

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment. – Lao Tzu

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom. – Terry Pratchett

Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Knowledge comes from learning. Wisdom comes from living. – Anthony Douglas Williams

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts 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. – Calvin Coolidge

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Knowledge in youth is wisdom in age. – Traditional Proverb

Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification. – Martin H. Fischer

Knowledge is flour, but wisdom is bread. – Austin O’Malley

Knowledge is horizontal; it’s the accumulation of facts. Wisdom is vertical; it sees life from God’s perspective. – Bob Russell 

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. – Anonymous

Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad. – Brian O’Driscoll

Knowledge is knowing what to say. Wisdom is knowing when to say it. – Anonymous

Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day. – Zen Proverb

Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better. – Kay Redfield Jamison

Knowledge is not wisdom: cleverness is not, not without awareness of our death, not without recalling just how brief our flare is. – Euripides

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice. – Anton Chekhov

Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more. – William Cowper

Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave. – Frederick Douglass

Knowledge means knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. – Hayden Hollingsworth

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows. – Alfred North Whitehead

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens. – Jimi Hendrix

Knowledge which is divorced from justice, may be called cunning rather than wisdom. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. – James Madison

Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom. – Plato

Learn the richness of solitude and quiet. That “still small voice” is yearning to be heard. – Susan Jeffers

Learn, earn, return – these are the 3 phases of life. – Jack Balousek

Learned men fall into error oftenest by mistaking knowledge for wisdom. – Austin O’Malley

Learning acquired in youth arrests the evil of old age; and if you understand that old age has wisdom for its food, you will so conduct yourself in youth that your old age will not lack for nourishment. – Leonardo Da Vinci

Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power. – Swami Sivananda

Learning discernment is a lifelong project, and wisdom is hard-won. – Jeanie Miley

Learning happens at the edge of your ability. Endurance builds at the edge of your stamina. Breakthrough comes at the edge of your patience. Anything worthwhile is found on the edge. – Johnny Uzan

Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe. – Josh Billings

Leave no stone unturned. – Euripides

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions. – Laurence Sterne

Let deeds match words. – Plautus

Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course. – William Shakespeare

Let me warn you, if you start chasing after views, you’ll be left without bread and without views. – Nikolai Gogol

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice. – Sophocles

Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom. – Buddha

Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. – Epicurus

Let not wisdom be an occasional visitor–let it ever dwell with thee. – Edward Albert Counsel

Let us act on what we have, since we have not what we wish. – John Henry Newman

Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to. – Greg Anderson

Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. That is the wisdom of life. – W. Somerset Maugham

Let your actions demonstrate your wisdom. – Anonymous

Life appears to be too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong. – Charlotte Bronte

Life does not have to be easy to be wonderful. – Annette Funicello

Life is a gift of nature; but beautiful living is the gift of wisdom. – Greek Adage

Life is a journey, not a destination. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life is a travelling to the edge of knowledge, then a leap taken. – H. Lawrence

Life is about execution rather than purpose. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Life is like the ocean, it goes up and down. – Vanessa Paradis

Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue. – Edith Wharton

Life is what you make it. – Grandma Moses

Life often teaches us through our wrong turns and missed possibilities. – Anne Wilson Schaef

Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul. – Edward Albert Counsel

Line upon line, a little here and there,
We scrape together wisdom with slow care.
Wherefore? To blossom in a churchyard rose,
Or to go with the spirit–if it goes? – Karle Wilson Baker

Lion sounds that have not grown from the mouse may exude naked power… but cannot convey any wisdom or understanding… The initial steps on the path to courageous speech then are the first tentative steps into the parts of us that cannot speak. – David Whyte

Live and let live. – Dutch Proverb

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end. – Leonard Nimoy

Look about, my son, and see how little wisdom it takes to govern the world. – Axel Gustafsson Oxenstierna

Look around for a place to sow a few seeds. – Henry Van Dyke

Look twice before you leap. – Charlotte Bronte

Look wise, say nothing, and grunt. Speech was given to conceal thought. – William Osler

Lord, bless me with the ability to achieve all that I can, and the wisdom to realize it doesn’t all have to be by tomorrow! – William Eardley IV

Losing faith in your own singularity is the start of wisdom, I suppose; also the first announcement of death. – Peter Conrad

Lost time is never found again. – Benjamin Franklin

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none. – William Shakespeare

Love is the joy of the good, the wonder of the wise, the amazement of the Gods. – Plato

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise. – Samuel Johnson

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom; and a great empire and little minds go ill together. – Edmund Burke

Make it your habit not to be critical about small things. – Edward Everett Hale

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion. – William Godwin

Man is only great when he acts from passion. – Benjamin Disraeli

Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but 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 forth faith rather than reason. – Hal Borland

Man thinks
Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his:
Can we divine their world? – George Eliot

Man works outwardly and inwardly – after rest, he has energy; after energy, he needs repose; so, when we have given instruction for a time, we need instruction and must receive it, or the spirit faints and wisdom herself grows bitter. – James Stephens

Man’s wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy. – William Temple

Man’s highest blessedness,
In wisdom chiefly stands;
And in the things that touch upon the Gods,
‘Tis best in word or deed
To shun unholy pride;
Great words of boasting bring great punishments,
And so to grey-haired age
Teach wisdom at the last. – Sophocles

Man’s wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy. – William Temple

Many of us spend half of our time wishing for things we could have if we didn’t spend half our time wishing. – Alexander Woollcott

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. – Helen Keller

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense. – Joyce Meyer

Many spiritual teachers – in Buddhism, in Islam – have talked about first-hand experience of the world as an important part of the path to wisdom, to enlightenment. – Bell Hooks

Many things imperfect by nature are made perfect by wisdom. – Niccolò da Uzzano

Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power. – Lao Tzu

Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe. – Galileo Galilei

Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions. – Democritus

Meditation brings wisdom; lack of mediation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom. – Buddha

Meditation is about viewing the world with great clarity so you can make wise decisions. It will help you make the appropriate action with regard to things that you have to change. – Mia Conrad

Meditation is the soul’s perspective glass. – Owen Feltham

Memory is not wisdom; idiots can by rote repeat volumes. Yet what is wisdom without memory? – Martin Farquhar Tupper

Memory is the mother of all wisdom. – Aeschylus

Men always talk about the most important things to perfect strangers. In the perfect stranger we perceive man himself; the image of a God is not disguised by resemblances to an uncle or doubts of wisdom of a mustache. – Gilbert K. Chesterton

Men find happiness neither by means of the body nor through possessions, but through uprightness and wisdom. – Democritus

Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of wisdom. – Havelock Ellis

Miracles start to happen when you give as much energy to your dreams as to your fears. – Richard Wilkins

Mixing one’s wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably. – Bertolt Brecht

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance. – Charles Caleb Colton

Modest doubt is called the beacon of the wise. – William Shakespeare

Money buys everything but good sense. – Yiddish Proverb

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered. – Graham Greene

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us. – George Eliot

Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity. – Robert Louis Stevenson

Much of the wisdom of one age, is the folly of the next. – Charles Simmons

Much wisdom often goes with fewest words. – Sophocles

Multicolored stones and paintings, walkways, and theaters are useless in a city unless it also contains wisdom and law. Such things are the subject of wisdom and law, not equivalent to them. – Apollonius of Tyana

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy. – Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. – Charlie Parker

My abiding faith in the wisdom of our electorate is what gives me hope. – Kapil Sibal

My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it’s on your plate. – Thornton Wilder

My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom. – William Tecumseh Sherman

My company survives because I’ve learned to respect the ideas of people younger than me and recognize when my wisdom is obsolete. – Robert Kiyosaki

My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better. – Marlo Thomas

My mom calls me an older soul because, growing up, she taught me stuff real early. Now I spend most of my time chasing wisdom, chasing understanding. – Ray Lewis

My mother is a great source of advice and wisdom and consolation for me. – Katherine Heigl

My wisdom has long accumulated like a cloud, it becomes stiller and darker. So does all wisdom which shall one day bear lightnings. – Friedrich Nietzsche

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

Native American Wisdom
An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchild
about life. He said to his grandchild …
“A fight is going on inside of me … and it is a terrible fight and it is
between two wolves …
One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed,
arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride,
superiority and ego.
The other wolf stands for honor, joy, peace, love, hope, sharing,
serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy,
generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside of you and inside of every other
human being too.”
After thinking about it for a minute or two, the grandchild asked his
grandfather, “Which wolf will win”?
The old man leaned toward his grandchild and whispered …
“The one you feed.”

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. – Lao Tzu

Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy. – Isaac Newton

Necessity teaches wisdom, while prosperity makes fools. – Wellins Calcott.

Never argue with an idiot; they’ll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience. – anonymous

Never cut what you can untie. – Joseph Joubert

Never did nature say one thing and wisdom another. – Edmund Burke

Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another. – Juvenal

Never find fault with the absent. – Alexander Pope

Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn’t cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older. – Kris Kristofferson 

Never interrupt someone doing what you said couldn’t be done. – Amelia Earhart

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake. – Napoleon Bonaparte

Never reach out your hand unless you’re willing to extend an arm. – Pope Paul VI

Never say never, but the thought of electively cutting oneself is beyond my grasp, and I also object to it politically. Denying the lines on our faces makes a comment about age and wisdom I don’t care to make. – Debra Winger

Never say no twice if you mean it. – Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one. – Lord Chesterfield

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity. – George S. Patton

Never, no, never did nature say one thing and wisdom say another. – Edmund Burke

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time. – Theodore Roosevelt

No man has all the wisdom in the world; everyone has some. – Edgar Watson Howe

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore our belief in our own guidance. – Henry Miller

No man is the wiser for his learning; it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon; but wit and wisdom are born with a man. – John Selden

No man was ever wise by chance. – Lucius Annaeus Seneca

No matter how bad we might think the world is, in my experience the vast majority of us want to rub along with our fellow men and very often buried beneath a gruff exterior, there is a generous sprit waiting to be revealed. – Tony Clark

No matter how thin you slice it, there will always be two sides. – Baruch Spinoza

No objects of value are worth risking the priceless experience of waking up one more day. – Jack Smith

No one can give you better advice than yourself. – Cicero

No one ever found wisdom without also being a fool. Writers, alas, have to be fools in public, while the rest of the human race can cover its tracks. – Erica Jong

No one has a right to sit down and feel hopeless. There is too much work to do. – Dorothy Day

No one wants advice – only corroboration. – John Steinbeck

No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers. – Laurie Colwin

No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy – well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I’m President, I never will. – Barack Obama

No tree has branches so foolish as to fight among themselves. – Ojibway Tribe

No wise man ever wished to be younger. – Jonathan Swift

No, I never – no one ever – I never learned anything when I was a kid. Honestly, my parents had nothing to tell me – like, no wisdom, nothing. – Bruce Eric Kaplan

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful. – Ernest Hemingway

Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

None knows the weight of another’s burden. – George Herbert

None of us was born knowing or wise; but men become wise by consideration, observation, experience. – Benjamin Whichcote

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired. – Plautus

Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom. – Bodhidharma

Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much. – Erich Fromm

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves. – Henry David Thoreau

Nothing can be better calculated to advance our interests and character than the establishment of a liberal and disinterested policy, enlightened by patriotism and guided by wisdom. – Sam Houston

Nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise. – Francis Bacon

Nothing energizes me more than to burrow myself under a pile of received wisdom and emerge triumphant with the truth. – Timothy Noah

Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced. – John Keats

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

Nothing is impossible to the willing mind. – Books of the Han Dynasty

Nothing is impossible, the word itself says ‘I’m possible’! – Audrey Hepburn

Nothing is more simple than greatness; indeed, to be simple is to be great. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength. – Frances de Sales

Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. – C. S. Lewis

Novels are the Socratic dialogues of our time. Practical wisdom fled from school wisdom into this liberal form. – Friedrich Schlegel

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency. – John Updike

Now, if wisdom is God, who made all things, as is attested by the divine authority and truth, then the philosopher is a lover of God. – St. Augustine

Now, if you notice how the swan, putting its neck down into the deep water, brings up food for itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, in that He gave it a neck longer than its feet for this reason, that it might, as if lowering a sort of fishing line, procure the food hidden in the deep water. – Saint Basil

O Lord, please fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff, and nudge me when I’ve said enough. Enlightenment is the “quiet acceptance of what is” I believe the truly enlightened beings are those who refuse to allow themselves to be distressed over things that simply are the way they are. – Wayne Dyer

O, what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive! – Walter Scott

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal. – Henry Ford

Of all the forms of wisdom, hindsight is by general consent the least merciful, the most unforgiving. – John Fletcher

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship. – Epicurus

Of prosperity mortals can never have enough. – Aeschylus

On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows,
In every rill a sweet instruction flows. – Edward Young

Once I turned 35, I got the bonus of some wisdom and began to accept life on its own terms. – Mike Myers

Once you label me you negate me. – Soren Kierkegaard

Once you’re looking for wisdom, you have to look at why things happen and why people behave how they do: you cannot, in all conscience, accept any form of prejudice. – Genesis P-Orridge

One could argue that judgment and wisdom are the same; certainly wisdom is enhanced by judgment, but neither can be taught in the sense that knowledge can. If wisdom and judgment were learnable attributes as, say, algebra, much heartache of maturation could be avoided. Alas, it is not so. – Hayden Hollingsworth

One could surely argue that the Buddhist tradition, taken as a whole, represents the richest source of contemplative wisdom that any civilization has produced. – Sam Harris

One head cannot hold all wisdom. – Maasai (on wisdom)

One of the characteristics of a great leader is wisdom, and the best way to get wisdom is through experience. Normally that experience includes a few failures — that’s where battle scars and limps come from. – Ingar Grev

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know. – John Kenneth Galbraith

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most. – Walter Pater

One part of wisdom is knowing what you don’t need anymore and letting it go. – Jane Fonda

One principle eliminates a thousand decisions. – Johnny Uzan

One should speak little with others and much with oneself. – Danish Proverb

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.– Oliver Wendell Holmes

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes… and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility. – Eleanor Roosevelt

Only fools think they’re wise; the rest of us just muddle through as we can. – Charles de Lint

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. – Pablo Picasso

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change. – Confucius

Our bodies are at once the receiving and transmitting stations for life itself. It is the highest wisdom to recognize this fact and train our bodies to render them sensitive and responsive to nature. art and religion. – Ruth St. Denis

Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking. – Jackson Brown, Jr.

Our concern in meditation is to know oneself, not only superficially, but the whole content of the inner, hidden consciousness. Without knowing all that and being free of its conditioning, you cannot possibly go beyond the mind’s limits. That is why the thought process must cease, and for this cessation there must be knowledge of oneself. Therefore meditation is the beginning of wisdom, which is the understanding of one’s own mind and heart. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our deeds. – George Eliot

Our experience is composed rather of illusions lost than of wisdom acquired. – Joseph Roux

Our happiness depends on wisdom all the way. – Sophocles

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense. – Henry Miller

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them. – The Dalai Lama

Our real enemies are the people who make us feel so good that we are slowly, but inexorably, pulled down into the quicksand of smugness and self-satisfaction. – Sydney Harris

Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness. – Sacha Guitry

Out of compassion I destroy the darkness of their ignorance. From within them I light the lamp of wisdom and dispel all darkness from their lives. – Bhagavad Gita

Out of sight, out of mind. – Anonymous

Outside of hip-hop, it was in comics that I most often found the aesthetics and wisdom of my world reflected. – Ta-Nehisi Coates

Outside of the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no hope in this world. That cross and resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity. Wherever you go, ask God for wisdom on how to get that Gospel in, even in the toughest situations of life. – Ravi Zacharias

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain. – Kahlil Gibran

Pain can change you, but that doesn’t mean it has to be a bad change. Take that pain and turn it into wisdom. – Dalai Lama

Pain is the doorway to wisdom and to truth. – Keith Miller

Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position. – Bertrand Russell

Patience is the companion of wisdom. – Augustine of Hippo

Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. – Buddha

People don’t need more stuff, they need more wisdom. Maxime Lagacé

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. – Anton Chekhov

People only see what they are prepared to see. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

People seldom refuse help, if one offers it in the right way. – C. Benson

People used to grow up in small communities where folk wisdom was passed down. But we don’t live there anymore. We can’t go next door to your aunt and ask her for the answers. – Clarissa Pinkola Estes

People who are generous are constantly giving things away: courage, money, introductions – whatever is needed. Look around today and see what you have in abundance that others might be lacking. – David Jeremiah

Persistence. Perfection. Patience. Power. Prioritize your passion. It keeps you sane. – Criss Jami

Plan your life at New Year’s, your day at dawn. – Japanese proverb

Plan your life like you will live forever, and live your life like you will die the next day. – Anonymous

Please all, and you will please none. – Aesop

Plodding wins the race. – Aesop

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury – to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best for both the body and the mind. – Albert Einstein

Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only. – Samuel Smiles

Prevention is better than cure. – Desiderius Erasmus

Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. – Calvin Coolidge

Protection, as we use the word in Buddhism, is actually wisdom, it’s insight. Protection is seeing and knowing deeply that all things in our experience arise due to causes, due to conditions coming together in a certain way. – Sharon Salzberg

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience. – Cervantes

Proverbs are the daughters of experience. – Sierra Leone Proverb

Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think. – Alfred Austin

Pure, holy simplicity confounds all the wisdom of this world and the wisdom of the flesh. – Francis of Assisi

Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness. – Cyril Connolly

Putting is like wisdom – partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience. – Arnold Palmer

Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. – Sophocles

Radical common sense is the wisdom gleaned from the past that recognizes the perishable opportunities of the moment. It is the willingness to admit error and the refusal to be deterred by failure. – Marilyn Ferguson

Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think. – Martin Luther King, Jr., 

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform. – William Penn

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity. – Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 

Reading is knowledge and knowledge is power. Prosperity is a life experience in health, wealth and love. You are prosperous when you have the resources to do what you truly want to do at the time you want to do it. – Scott Sherman

Reading is one of the most important activities, which helps to educate genius and develop creative abilities. – Samuel Greenberg

Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. – Leo Tolstoy

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. – Albert Einstein

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. – Sydney J. Harris

Remarkable contributions are typically spawned by a passionate commitment to transcendent values such as beauty, truth, wisdom, justice, charity, fidelity, joy, courage and honor. – Gary Hamel

Remember that the habits you are trying to alter developed for a reason. If you continue to drift back into them, take some time to examine the circumstances. – Henry Lee

Remembering is painful, it’s difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom. – Paul Greengrass

Repeat anything often enough and it will start to become you. – Tom Hopkins

Research the leaders in fields related to yours, synthesize their findings, and see how you can apply their hard-won wisdom to your work. Stand on their shoulders, and then make a leap into new territory that is distinctly yours. – Brendon Burchard

Rich people without wisdom and learning are but sheep with golden fleeces. – Solon

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

Sadly, we are too often a destination-obsessed people. We are so motivated by accomplishment that it’s almost impossible for us to have a context for life outside of what we get done. – Brian Hardin

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom. – Will Durant

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control. – Martin Luther King Jr

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness. – Aleister Crowley

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. – Immanuel Kant

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not. – Laurence Sterne

Second thoughts are ever wiser. – Euripides

Seek the lofty by reading, hearing and seeing great work at some moment every day. – Thornton Wilder

Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child. – Ron Wild

Seek wisdom along with knowledge. Knowledge is words. Wisdom is silent. Knowledge is understanding what is seen. Wisdom is knowing what is not seen. Without knowledge, one could not play the violin. Without wisdom, one could not play the music. – Thibaut

Seek your own reality, that is what a wise man should do. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba

Self-Improvement and success go hand in hand. Taking the steps to make yourself a better and more well-rounded individual will prove to be a wise decision. – Frank Long

Self-knowledge is the beginning of wisdom, which is the ending of fear. – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Self-suggestion makes you master of yourself. – Clement Stone

Set your course by the stars, not by the lights of every passing ship. – Omar N. Bradley

Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear. – Thomas Jefferson

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech. – Plutarch

Silence is foolish if we are wise, but wise if we are foolish. – Charles Caleb Colton

Silence is often misinterpreted but never misquoted. – Anonymous

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom. – Francis Bacon

Silence is true wisdom’s best reply. – Euripides

Simplicity is ultimately a matter of focus. – Ann Voskamp

Simplicity will stand out, while complexity will get lost in the crowd. – Kevin Barnett

Since human wisdom cannot secure us from accidents, it is the greatest effort of reason to bear them well. – John Paul Jones

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim. – John D. Rockefeller

Slow and steady wins the race. – Robert Lloyd

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done. – Thomas Jefferson

Society is notoriously stupid in its failure to harness the wisdom of older women in everything from television to politics, family life to boardrooms, and here is one reminiscing with honesty and realism about women’s particular challenge: to create our professional and financial structures in the same period as our peak fertility. – Victoria Coren Mitchell

Some coaches pray for wisdom. I pray for 260-pound tackles. They’ll give me plenty of wisdom. – Chuck Noll

Some folks are wise and some are otherwise. – Tobias Smollett

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment. – Edmund Morgan

Some of the best lessons we ever learn are learned from past mistakes. The error of the past is the wisdom and success of the future. – Dale Turner

Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go. – Hermann Karl Hesse

Some people are so poor, all they have is money. – Jack Kerouac

Some wisdom you must learn from one who’s wise. – Euripides

Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already. – Baltasar Gracian

Someday in the distant cyborg future, when our internal and external memories fully merge, we may come to possess infinite knowledge. But that’s not the same thing as wisdom. – Joshua Foer

Sometimes I am happy and sometimes not. I am, after all, a human being, you know. And I am glad that we are sometimes happy and sometimes not. You get your wisdom working by having different emotions. – Yoko Ono

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom. – Elizabeth Gaskell

Sometimes you surprise yourself with what you can handle, and if you come out the other end with some wisdom, then it’s not such a bad thing. – Boy George

Sometimes, arguments end simply by accepting that you don’t agree with the other party. Instead of trying to sway the other person to agree with you, you just have to accept your differences. – James Christiansen

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. – Lord Byron

Speak less, say more. – Anonymous

Spend time reflecting on your emotional and physical existence and how that applies to the voice. You have to apply that wisdom and experience when you sing – it’s what comes through. – D. Lang

Spending two years on my uncle’s ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns. – Robert Duvall

Spiritual teachers and artists that have opened the eye of wisdom for the world, and visionary community builders, have influenced my work. – Alex Grey

‘Star Trek’ was an attempt to say humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in lifeforms. – Gene Roddenberry

Start wide, expand further, and never look back. – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Start with God – the first step in learning is bowing down to God; only fools thumb their noses at such wisdom and learning. – King Solomon

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable. – Franz Kafka

Starting with a meagre amount of Rs 300 as a conductor, when I became an actor and started seeing huge moneys like Rs 3 or 4 lakhs, I thought I was ‘an exclusive creation’ by God, and he had made me like this. Later, I got the wisdom and realised that my time was good and things worked out! And I was also a normal human being like others. – Rajinikanth

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. – Dr. Seuss

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values. – William J. Clinton

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence. – Jean Paul

Stronger by weakness, wiser men become. – Edmund Waller

Success is a wonderful thing, but it tends not to be the sort of experience that we learn from. We enjoy it; perhaps we even deserve it. But we don’t acquire wisdom from it. – Timothy Noah

Success is not to be pursued; it is to be attracted by the person you become. – Jim Rohn

Suffering is one of life’s great teachers. – Bryant H. McGill

Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy: the mad daughter of a wise mother. – Voltaire

Supreme happiness will be the greatest cause of misery, and the perfection of wisdom the occasion of folly. – Leonardo Da Vinci

Surely wisdom will come as we listen to learn from children, parents, partners, neighbors, Church leaders, and the Lord. – Russell M. Nelson

Surely, God on high has not refused to give us enough wisdom to find ways to bring us an improvement in relations between the two great nations on earth. – Mikhail Gorbachev

‘Swan,’ by Mary Oliver. Poems and prose. Reading from this book is as if visiting a very wise friend. There is wisdom and welcoming kindness on every page. – Jessye Norman

Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. – Sam Walton

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful. – John Wooden

Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful. – Harvey Mackay

Talent is like the marksman who hits a target which others cannot reach; genius is like the marksman who hits a target… which others cannot even see. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary. – Walter Scott

That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what are unusual; the wise man wonders at the usual. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest. – Henry David Thoreau

That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest. – Henry David Thoreau

That old law about ‘an eye for an eye’ leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing. – Martin Luther King, Jr.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger. – Friedrich Nietzsche

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another. – Adlai Stevenson I

The ‘wisdom of the crowds’ is the most ridiculous statement I’ve heard in my life. Crowds are dumb. – Drew Curtis

The ability to communicate fluidly and effectively is more than just a skill that one develops over time. It is a combination of skill, and wisdom, and the ability to connect to the perception of another that will allow them to see things the way you do and follow along with your will. – Gerald Campbell

The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain. – Aristotle

The all-seeing eye of God beheld our deplorable state; infinite pity touched the heart of the Father of mercies; and infinite wisdom laid the plan of our recovery. – David Brainerd

The All-Wise Maker attaches hundreds of instances of wisdom to each of the beings in the palace of the universe and equips them to perform hundreds of duties. To all trees He bestows instances of wisdom to the number of its fruits and gives duties to the number of its flowers. – Said Nursi

The animal acts and does not reflect. The indecisive man reflects and does not act. The average man reflects after he acts. The wise man reflects before he acts. – The Stoic Emperor

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. – William James

The art of knowing is knowing what to ignore. – James Altucher

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out. – Walter Benjamin

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while. – Albert Einstein

The beauty of age is we grow, we learn. We have more wisdom. And as much as the youth-glorifying Hollywood would like us to believe, it’s nothing. They’re wrong. – Sherilyn Fenn

The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly. – Norman MacDonald

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it. – Solomon Ibn Gabirol

The best cure for anger is delay.– Seneca, A.D. 63

The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching. – Joseph Smith Jr

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. – Alan Kay

The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it. – Criss Jami

The blowback against a bailout of Lehman would have been fierce. It is often forgotten, but the prevailing wisdom the day after Lehman fell was that its collapse was a good thing. – Andrew Ross Sorkin

The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month. – Fyodor Dostoevsky

The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought. – Edward Young

The coward wretch whose hand and heart can bear to torture aught below, is ever first to quail and start from the slightest pain or equal foe. – Bertrand Russell

The day of fortune is like a harvest day, We must be busy when the corn is ripe. – Torquato Tasso

The difference between a wise and foolish man is this–the former sees much, thinks much, and speaks little; but the latter speaks more than he either sees or thinks. – William Scott Downey

The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you’re in. – Wilson Mizner

The disadvantage of becoming wise is that you realize how foolish you’ve been. – Evan Esar

The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness. – Emanuel Swedenborg

The Divine wisdom has given us prayer, not as a means whereby to obtain the good things of earth, but as a means whereby we learn to do without them; not as a means whereby we escape evil, but as a means whereby we become strong to meet it. – Frederick William Robertson

The divine wisdom which requires a division of labor has sown different abilities and tendencies in human nature and has enabled human beings to carry out the duty of establishing sciences and developing technology. The fulfillment of this duty is obligatory upon humanity as a whole, though not on every individual. – Said Nursi

The door to wisdom is knowing yourself. – Anonymous

The doors of wisdom are never shut. – Benjamin Franklin

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance. – Benjamin Franklin

The empty vessel makes the loudest sound. – William Shakespeare

The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it. – William Faulkner

The errors of a wise man make your rule rather than the perfections of a fool. – William Blake

The essence of Hikmah or wisdom is to place everything in its correct place, speech or action, as well as the conformance of knowledge with action. – Al-Samarua’i

The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding. – Albert Camus

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. – Samuel Smiles

The extreme limit of wisdom — that’s what the public calls madness. – Jean Cocteau

The fact that so many of us are so out of touch with [our] inner wisdom is simply a function of a lifetime of “fox training” . We’ve been innocently taught from the time we were born that the “right” answers to our most important questions are in the world around us, already out there waiting if only we can find them. So we search and we seek, and sure enough, there are thousands of people only too willing to share their best advice on how to find happiness, get everything we want, and outfox the other foxes to make our way in the world. – Michael Neill

The fall of dropping water wears away the Stone. – Lucretius

The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. – Robert Frost

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it. – Reinhold Niebuhr

The first and wisest of them all professed
To know this only, that he nothing knew. – John Milton

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true. – Lactantius

The first point of wisdom is to discern what is false; the second, to know what is true. – Lactantius

The first principle of solid wisdom is discretion, without it all the erudition of life is merely bagatelle. – Norman MacDonald

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool. – Anatole France

The fool wonders, the wise man asks. – Benjamin Disraeli

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education. – John Updike

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise. – Proverbs 11:30

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The future has already arrived. It’s just not evenly distributed yet. – William Gibson

The gateways to wisdom and learning are always open, and more and more I am choosing to walk through them. Barriers, blocks, obstacles, and problems are personal teachers giving me the opportunity to move out of the past and into the Totality of Possibilities. – Louise L. Hay

The goal of human nature, of any nature is blessedness. If we do not reach this goal, it is a sign that we are headed in the wrong direction. – Raimon Pannikar

The gods do not need sacrifices, so what might one do to please them? Acquire wisdom, it seems to me, and do all the good in one’s power to those humans who deserve it. – Apollonius of Tyana

The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone. – Orison Swett Marden

The good and the wise lead quiet lives. – Euripides

The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink. – George Orwell

The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark. – Michelangelo

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds. – John F. Kennedy

The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom. – Stephen Gardiner

The greatest chapters in history always begin with risk, and the same is true with the chapters of your life. – Mark Batterson

The greatest ideas are the simplest. – William Golding

The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one’s self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance—it is the illusion of knowledge. – Daniel J Boorstin

The greatest wisdom is to realize one’s lack of it. – Constantin Stanislavski

The harder you ask for something, and work for it, the better your chances of getting it. The question is, are you working hard and asking for it?Maxime Lagacé

The hardnesses of our experiences, which seem to us to be more than we can possibly endure, make the very school of life for us in which we learn our best lessons and grow into whatever beauty and Christlikeness of character we attain. – Al Bryant

The higher we are placed, the more humbly we should walk. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure. – William Blake

The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy. – George Santayana

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. – Lao Tzu

The just man loves God for nothing, neither for this nor for that, and if God gave him wisdom or anything else he had to give, except himself, the just man would not look at it, nor would it be to his taste; for he wants nothing, seeks nothing, and has no reason for doing anything. – Meister Eckhart

The key to wisdom is this – constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth. – Peter Abelard

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity. – Sophocles

The knowledge and experience which produce wisdom can only become a man’s individual possession and property by his own free action; and it is as futile to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not been sown. – Samuel Smiles

The legacy you leave is the life you lead. We lead our lives daily, and we leave a legacy daily – not some grand plan, what we do each and every day, all the little decisions, because we never know what impact things will have or when you might have an impact. – Jim Kouzes

The less you talk, the more you’re listened to. – Pauline Phillips

The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. – John Burroughs

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends. – Friedrich Nietzsche

The man of wisdom is the man of years. – Edward Young

The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to himself and his fellow men. – Robert G. Ingersoll

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom. – Plato

The marvel of the Bhagavad-Gita is its truly beautiful revelation of life’s wisdom which enables philosophy to blossom into religion. – Hermann Karl Hesse

The mind is everything. What you think you become. – Buddha

The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more I appreciate and sympathize with a given disease. The body no longer appears as a sick or irrational demon, but as a process with its own inner logic and wisdom. – George MacDonald

The more one pleases everybody, the less one pleases profoundly. – Stendhal

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it. – Jean Paul

The more things change, the more they stay the same. – Alphonse Karr

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom. – James Allen

The more you like yourself, the less you are like anyone else, which makes you unique. – Walt Disney

The more you meditate on the laws of Moses, the more striking and brighter does their wisdom appear. – John Quincy Adams

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. – Michel de Montaigne

The most certain sign of wisdom is continual cheerfulness; her state is like the things above the moon, always clear and serene. – Michael de Montaigne

The most complicated skill is to be simple. – Dejan Stojanovic

The most disadvantageous peace is better than the most just war. – Desiderius Erasmus

The most valuable thing I have learned from life is to regret nothing. – Somerset Maugham

The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one. – Honore De Balzac

The mouse is wise, but the cat is wiser. – Tycho Brahe

The novelist teaches the reader to comprehend the world as a question. There is wisdom and tolerance in that attitude. In a world built on sacrosanct certainties the novel is dead. – Milan Kundera

The older I get the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first. A process which often reduces the most complex human problem to a manageable proportion. – Dwight D. Eisenhower

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom. – H. L. Mencken

The older you get, the more quiet you become. Life humbles you so deeply as you age. You realize how much nonsense you’ve waste time on. – Anonymous

The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all other woes of mankind, is wisdom. Teach a man to read and write, and you have put into his hands the great keys of the wisdom box. But it is quite another thing to open the box. – Thomas Huxley

The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. – John Powell

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

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. – Socrates

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours. – Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The opportunity for brotherhood presents itself every time you meet a human being. – Jane Wyman

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails. – William Arthur Ward

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow. – William Osler

The philosophy I love is very selective. It is really just the bit that is involved in a search for wisdom, and this means a short roll call of names; Socrates, Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epicurus, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche. – Alain de Botton

The philosophy of life is this: Life is not a struggle, not a tension… Life is bliss. It is eternal wisdom, eternal existence. – Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The pine stays green in winter… wisdom in hardship. – Norman Douglas

The price of greatness is responsibility. – Sir Winston Churchill

The problem lies with us: we’ve become addicted to experts. We’ve become addicted to their certainty, their assuredness, their definitiveness, and in the process, we have ceded our responsibility, substituting our intellect and our intelligence for their supposed words of wisdom. – Noreena Hertz

The real secret of patience is to find something to do in the meantime. The state of your life is nothing more than a reflection of your state of mind. – Wayne Dyer

The Relation we bear to the Wisdom of the Father, the Son of His Love, gives us indeed a dignity which otherwise we have no pretence to. It makes us something, something considerable even in God’s Eyes. – Mary Astell

The riches that are in the heart cannot be stolen. – Russian Proverb

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. – William Blake

The road to true wisdom has seldom been spanned by mortals. – Edward Albert Counsel

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom. – Isaac Asimov

The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right. – William Hazlitt

The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words. – Robert South

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them. – Paulo Coelho

The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable. – Rabindranath Tagore

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention. – John Burroughs

The soul’s joy lies in doing. – Percy Bysshe Shelley

The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything. – Milan Kundera

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying. – Norman Douglas

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. – Ezra Pound

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The summit of happiness is reached when a person is ready to be what he is. – Desiderius Erasmus

The sun of the mind, and the life of the heart is Wisdom.
She is pure and full of light, crowning grey hairs with lustre,
And kindling the eye of youth with a fire not its own. – Martin Farquhar Tupper

The superior man blames himself. The inferior man blames others. – Don Shula

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. – Confucius

The sweetest of all sounds is praise. – Xenophon

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind. – Kahlil Gibran

The thing that we possess, that machines don’t, is the ability to exhibit wisdom. – Herbie Hancock

The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense. – Thomas A. Edison

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining. – John F. Kennedy

The topic ‘Farm Wisdom’ is not a gospel doctrine or scriptural topic, although I found considerable scriptural support for the lessons learned on the farm. – John Bytheway

The trouble with most folks isn’t so much their ignorance, as knowing so many things that ain’t so. – Josh Billings

The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind. – Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination. – Napoleon Bonaparte

The truly rich are those who enjoy what they have. – Yiddish Proverb

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it. – Ayn Rand

The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forbearing. – Epictetus

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. – Hal Borland

The Universal Zulu Nation stands to acknowledge wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, and equality, peace, unity, love, and having fun, work, overcoming the negative through the positive, science, mathematics, faith, facts, and the wonders of God, whether we call him Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or Jah. – Afrika Bambaataa

The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom. – Aristotle

The war… was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides. – Robert E. Lee

The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become. – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The weak have remedies, the wise have joys; superior wisdom is superior bliss. – Edward Young

The wealth of mankind is the wisdom they leave. – John Boyle O’Reilly

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease. – Josh Billings

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. – Aristotle

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell

The whole process of mental, spiritual, and material riches may be summed up in one word – gratitude. Your key to freedom lies in your power to control your thoughts. – Tim Connor

The wisdom acquired with the passage of time is a useless gift unless you share it. – Esther Williams

The wisdom and experience of older people is a resource of inestimable worth. Recognizing and treasuring the contributions of older people is essential to the long-term flourishing of any society. – Daisaku Ikeda

The wisdom of age: don’t stop walking. – Mason Cooley

The wisdom of crowds works when the crowd is choosing the price of an ox, when there’s a single numeric average. But if it’s a design or something that matters, the decision is made by committee, and that’s crap. You want people and groups who are able to think thoughts before they share. – Jaron Lanier

The wisdom of God is so great that He also knows exactly what I would think and do under every possible circumstance and situation, and he placed me in that state of life and situation best suited for my salvation. – Mother Angelica

The wisdom of God’s Word is quite clear on believers being unequally yoked. And marrying someone who is not a Christian – who is not a daily disciple of Christ – is being unequally yoked, regardless of what their beliefs might be. – Pat Robertson

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality. – Andrew Jackson

The wisdom of our parents, grandparents, ancestors. In each individual life, it seems, we must first reject that wisdom, then later come to appreciate it. – Tad Williams

The wisdom of the ignorant somewhat resembles the instinct of animals; it is diffused in but a very narrow sphere, but within the circle it acts with vigor, uniformity, and success. – Oliver Goldsmith

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations. – Benjamin Disraeli

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation’s proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations. – William Feather

The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense. – William Inge

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation. – Isaac D’Israeli

The wisdom of this world is idiotism. – Thomas Dekker

The wise are cheerful and content with their lot in life. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba

The wise are known by their actions; fame and immortality are ever their attendants. – Johann Gaudenz Gubert Graf von Salis-Seewis

The wise are only once betrayed. – German Proverb

The wise are those who know the Self. – Sri Sathya Sai Baba

The wise do as much as they should, not as much as they can. – French Proverb

The wise does at once what the fool does at last. – Baltasar Gracian

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility: and he who knows most knows best how little he knows. – Thomas Jefferson

The wise lack for nothing. The foolish, meanwhile, cannot make good use of anything. – Camille Alice

The wise man belongs to all countries, for the home of a great soul is the whole world. – Democritus

The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently; but he is willing, in great crises, to give even his life – knowing that under certain conditions it is not worthwhile to live. – Aristotle

The wise man does not grow old, but ripens. – Victor Hugo

The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue. – Ivan Panin

The wise man is but a clever infant spelling letters from a hierographical prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity. – Thomas Carlyle

The wise man is he who knows the relative value of things. – Dean Inge

The wise man is wise in vain who cannot be wise to his own advantage. – Ennius

The wise may find in trifles light as atoms in the air, some useful lesson to enrich the mind. – John Godfrey Saxe

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve. – Buddha

The wise understand by themselves; fools follow the reports of others. – Tibetan Proverb

The wisest have the most authority. – Plato

The wisest man is he who does not believe he is wise. – Traditional Proverb

The wisest men follow their own direction. – Euripides

The wisest mind has something yet to learn. – George Santayana

The wisest of the wise may err. – Aeschylus

The woods were a boon; all too often, the forest offered danger and mystery. Yet it could be liberating. If you entered that wild place on its own terms, you might be accorded wisdom. – John Burnside

The word philosophy sounds high-minded, but it simply means the love of wisdom. If you love something, you don’t just read about it; you hug it, you mess with it, you play with it, you argue with it. – Hugh Jackman

The world is a diverse place. Nobody has a monopoly on virtue or wisdom. – Lee Hsien Loong

The young man knows the rules but the old man knows the exceptions. – Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr

There are many gates to the house of wisdom. – Edward Albert Counsel

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still. – Franklin D. Roosevelt

There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain. – Plato

There are three faithful friends – an old wife, an old dog, and ready money. – Benjamin Franklin

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest. – Confucius

There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool. – Francis Bacon

There is a trade off – as you grow older you gain wisdom but you lose spontaneity. – Kenny Rogers

There is a universal, intelligent, life force that exists within everyone and everything. It resides within each one of use as a deep wisdom, an inner knowing. We can access this wonderful source of knowledge and wisdom through our intuition, an inner sense that tells us what feels right and true for us at any given moment. – Shakti Gawain

There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health. – Francis Bacon

There is a wisdom of the Head, and … there is a wisdom of the Heart. – Charles Dickens

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart. – Charles Dickens

There is as much wisdom in listening as there is in speaking – and that goes for all relationships, not just romantic ones. – Daniel Dae Kim

There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. – Friedrich Nietzsche

There is no absolute knowledge. And those who claim it, whether they are scientists or dogmatists, open the door to tragedy. All information is imperfect. We have to treat it with humility. – J. Bronowski

There is no greater privilege in living than bringing a tiny new human being into the world and then trying to raise him or her properly during the next eighteen years. Doing that job right requires all the intelligence, wisdom, and determination you will be able to muster from day to day. – James Dobson

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom. – Sophocles

There is no knowledge, no light, no wisdom that you are in possession of, but what you have received it from some source. – Brigham Young

There is no man … however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man — so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise — unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded. – Marcel Proust

There is no more noble occupation in the world than to assist  another human being – to help someone to succeed. – Alan Loy McGinnus

There is no pain equal to that which two lovers can inflict on one another. This should be made clear to all who contemplate such a union. The avoidance of this pain is the beginning of wisdom, for it is strong enough to contaminate the rest of our lives. – Cyril Connolly

There is no security in life. There is only opportunity. – Douglas MacArthur

There is no such thing as human wisdom; all is the providence of God. – John Adams

There is no wealth but life. – John Ruskin

There is not one wise man in twenty that will praise himself. – William Shakespeare

There is often, in the affairs of government, more efficiency and wisdom in non-action than in action. – John C. Calhoun

There is only a finger’s difference between a wise man and a fool. – Diogenes

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool. – Charles Caleb Colton

There should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time, you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom. – George Lucas

There’s a beauty to wisdom and experience that cannot be faked. It’s impossible to be mature without having lived. – Amy Grant

There’s a real wisdom to not saying a thing. – Willem Dafoe

There’s something peculiar about writing fiction. It requires an interesting balance between seeing the world as a child and having the wisdom of a middle-aged person. The further you get from childhood and the experience of the teenage years, the greater the danger of losing that wellspring. – Kazuo Ishiguro

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. – Confucius

They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed. – William Cowper

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

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures. – Jackson Brown, Jr.

Think truly, and thy thoughts shall the world’s famine feed. Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be a fruitful seed. Live truly, and thy life shall be A great and noble creed. – Horatius Bonar, D.D.

Thinking is not enough. There is no final enough of wisdom, experience – any… thing. – William S. Burroughs

Thinking well to be wise: planning well, wiser: doing well wisest and best of all. – Malcolm Forbes

This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom’s school. – Thomas Dekker

This fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. This consciousness of sin is the straight pathway to heaven. – Joseph Barber Lightfoot

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

This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original and has something important to say. – Brenda Ueland

This society in which we live is radically changing. What previous generations saw as evil is now embraced as being good. It is a dangerous and slippery slope upon which we stand when we reject what Solomon called the beginning of wisdom – the fear of God. – Ray Comfort

This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God. – William Law

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. – Voltaire

Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forced by the occasion. – Benjamin Franklin

Those who improve with age embrace the power of personal growth and personal achievement and begin to replace youth with wisdom, innocence with understanding, and lack of purpose with self-actualization. – Bo Bennett

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise. – William Shakespeare

Though I am fascinated by knowledge, I am even more fascinated by wisdom. – Abraham Verghese

Though sages may pour out their wisdom’s treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure. – Lord Byron

Though wisdom is common, yet the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. – Heraclitus

Through consciousness, our minds have the power to change our planet and ourselves. It is time we heed the wisdom of the ancient indigenous people and channel our consciousness and spirit to tend the garden and not destroy it. – Bruce Lipton

Through the years, I, like you, have experienced pressures and disappointments that would have crushed me had I not been able to draw upon a source of wisdom and strength far greater than my own. He has never forgotten or forsaken me, and I have come to know for myself that Jesus is the Christ and that this is His Church. – Sheri L. Dew

Thus, a wise individual is the one who learns to see positive even in unfavorable events and unanticipated behavior of people. – Lindsay J. Hallie

Time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again. What we leave behind is not as important as how we have lived. – Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek)

Time ripens all things; no man is born wise. – Miguel de Cervantes

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole. – Alexander Pope

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. – Marilyn vos Savant

To advise is not to compel. – Anton Chekhov

To attain knowledge, add things everyday. To attain wisdom, remove things every day. – Lao Tzu

To avoid entangling alliances has been a maxim of our policy ever since the days of Washington, and its wisdom no one will attempt to dispute. – James Buchanan

To be ignorant of one’s ignorance is the malady of the ignorant. – Amos Bronson Alcott

To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness. – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not. – Akhenaton

To be seventy years young is sometimes far more cheerful and hopeful than to be forty years old. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

To be wise, we must seek Jesus, for we will not find wisdom apart from him. – Kim Brenneman

To display courage without wisdom is like firing a rifle blindfolded. – Wil Williams

To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave. – Frederick Douglass

To embrace the whole world in friendship is wisdom. This wisdom is not changeable like the flowers that bloom and fade. – Thiruvalluvar

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him. – Buddha

To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject. – Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly. – Samuel Johnson

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. – Henri Frédéric Amiel

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living. – Herman Melville

To know one’s self is wisdom, but not to know one’s neighbors is genius. – Minna Antrim

To light one candle to God and another to the Devil is the principle of wisdom. – Jose Bergamin

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. – Friedrich Nietzsche

To make difficult decisions wisely, it helps to have a systematic process for assessing each choice and its consequences – the potential impact on each aspect of your life. – Stedman Graham

To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future. – Plutarch

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. – Wilson Mizner

To suppose more than one supreme Source of infinite wisdom, power, and all perfections, is to assert that there is no supreme Being in existence. – Adam Clarke

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution. – Marcus Aurelius

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue. – William Hazlitt

To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom: an important imagination, and the way to happiness. – Thomas Traherne

To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell

To wear your heart on your sleeve isn’t a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best. – Margaret Thatcher

To win without risk is to triumph without glory. – Pierre Corneille

To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal. – Augustine of Hippo

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

Today’s mighty oak is just yesterday’s nut, that held its ground. – David Icke

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live. – Robert Kennedy

Treat people as if they were what they ought to be, and you help them to become what they are capable of being. – Goethe

Trouble shared is trouble halved. – Lee Iacocca

True freedom is an inner thing. It is a state of mind. It is a deliberate exercise of choice. Thus, if we think we are bound by external forces, we are deceiving ourselves. It is our willing acquiescence to these outer demands that imprisons. Free yourself today. Take control of your thoughts. No day is so bad it can’t be fixed with a nap. Welcome anything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.I often regret that I have spoken; never that I am silent. – Publilius Syrus

True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing. – Socrates

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

True wisdom is knowing what you don’t know. – Confucius

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance. – Akhenaton

True wisdom is not found in yes-or-no answers, but in the open mind of not-knowing. – Melvin McLeod

True wisdom is remembering that in the end, no matter what, everything will be fine. Maxime Lagacé

True wisdom listens more, talks less and can get along with all types of people. – Kiana Tom

Truth builds trust. – Marilyn Suttle

Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. – Isaac Newton

Turn your wounds into wisdom. – Oprah Winfrey

Uncertainty is the root of all progress and all growth. We cannot learn anything without first not knowing something. – Mark Manson

Unhappy is that Grandeur which makes us too great to be good; and that Wit which sets us at a distance from true Wisdom. – Mary Astell

Unless, we value wisdom, we are bound to suffer many things that we were never meant to suffer. – Kilton Moyo

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. – Albert Einstein

Until lions have their historians, tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunters. – African Proverb

Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best. – Henry Van Dyke

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense. – Julian Casablancas

Virtue has a veil, vice a mask. – Victor Hugo

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself. – Sidney Lanier

War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end; it has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes. – Thomas Paine

Was not this … what we spoke of as the great advantage of wisdom — to know what is known and what is unknown to us? – Plato

We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice. – Arthur Helps

We all fall into biological and mental habits. It’s an easy way for us to navigate day-to-day work and life, but it also doesn’t do us any favours in terms of growing into wisdom, growing into a greater understanding of each other, growing into a deeper relationship – all the things that we really crave. – Genesis P-Orridge

We all grow up. Hopefully, we get wiser. Age brings wisdom, and fatherhood changes one’s life completely. – Frank Abagnale

We all have within us a deep wisdom, but sometimes we don’t know we have it. – Shakti Gawain

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. – E. O. Wilson

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future. – George Bernard Shaw

We are shallow because we are ‘mayabang,’ ego driven, and do not have the humility to understand that we are only human, much too human to mistake knowledge for wisdom. – Sionil Jose

We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far. – Swami Vivekananda

We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. – Aristotle

We are wiser than we know. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right. – Seneca

We believe in the wisdom of the front lines. – Charles Best

We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom. – Michel de Montaigne

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom. – Leo Tolstoy

We can stay young by focusing on a dream instead of on a regret. It is a mistake to regard age as a downhill grade toward dissolution. The reverse is true. As one grows older one climbs with surprising strides. – George Sand

We can’t really digest food unless there’s hunger. So we can’t really assimilate spiritual wisdom unless we feel the need for it. – Radhanath Swami

We cannot become what we need to be by remaining what we are. – Max de Pree

We cannot hold a torch to light another’s path without brightening our own. – Ben Sweetland

We can’t really digest food unless there’s hunger. So we can’t really assimilate spiritual wisdom unless we feel the need for it. – Radhanath Swami

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation. – William O. Douglas

We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. – Marcel Proust

We dwell in the house of the body, but its perfection and intricate life are the work of a wisdom which never relaxes dominion over a single cell. – George William Russell

We gain the strength of the temptation we resist. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld

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

We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don’t allow our bodies to heal, and we don’t allow our minds and hearts to heal. – Thich Nhat Hanh

We know there is a deep reservoir of food wisdom out there, or else humans would not have survived to the extent we have. Much of this food wisdom is worth preserving and reviving and heeding. – Michael Pollan

We learn from each other. We learn from others’ mistakes, from their experience, their wisdom. It makes it easier for us to come to better decisions in our own lives. – Adrian Grenier

We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. – Samuel Smiles

We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy. – Joe Baca

We live in a culture that doesn’t acknowledge or validate human intuition and doesn’t encourage us to rely on our intuitive wisdom. – Shakti Gawain

We must attain wisdom as we go up stairs, one step at a time. – Tsze-kung

We must be willing to let goof the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us. – E. M. Forester

We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters. – Robert E. Lee

We must learn from the sermons of Christ, the wisdom of Lao Tzu, the teachings of Buddha. – Charles Lindbergh

We need to hear stories from older women. There’s a wealth of wisdom and real resilience there, but they’re silenced. – Hannah Gadsby

We never have more than we can bear. The present hour we are always able to endure. – H. E. Manning

We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it. – James M. Barrie

We respect our elders. There is wisdom that comes from experience, and I am not going to stop learning from wise counsel. – Marcia Fudge

We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure. – Leo Buscaglia

We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. – Mother Teresa

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started. – Henry Ward Beecher

We simply can no longer afford to deny the full potential of one half of the population. The world needs to tap into the talent and wisdom of women. Whether the issue is food security, economic recovery, health, or peace and security, the participation of women is needed now more than ever. – Michelle Bachelet

We tend to think of great thinkers and innovators as soloists, but the truth is that the greatest innovative thinking doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Innovation results from collaboration. – John C. Maxwell

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom. – Stephen Vincent Benet

We will be known forever by the tracks we leave. – Dakota (Native American saying)

We won’t have a society if we destroy the environment. – Margaret Mead

We’re all going to change. Otherwise, it’s boring. – Alicia Keys

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants. – Epictetus

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life. – Henry David Thoreau

We’ve heard people say that teachers have no business going rogue and trying to select their own books, technology, and classes – and citizens have no business deciding what is worthy. We believe in teachers. We believe in the wisdom of the crowd. – Charles Best

What a new face courage puts on everything. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

What happens is not as important as how you react to what happens. – Ellen Glasgow

What I like about graduation speeches is that they’re an opportunity for someone to make sense of their life and to impart that wisdom to someone else. It’s like a sanctioned self-help moment. – Bruce Eric Kaplan

What I want to do with my filmmaking is help kids experience the truth and wisdom of nature no matter where they are, whether or not they have the opportunity to go to a national park. – Louie Schwartzberg

What if Barack Obama established a Presidential Advisory Committee that would meet once every couple of months, bringing together the former presidents for a conference in order to seek their collective wisdom? There is a wealth of experience in former presidents that generally goes untapped. – Tony Campolo

What if, for starters, instead of constantly trying to prove how much smarter we are than others, we look for the intelligence in what others do. – Neil Strauss

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes? – Norman Douglas

What is man’s ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty. – Shinichi Suzuki

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. – William Blake

What I’ve been able to do with my character, Madea, and the other characters, with the jokes, is use it as an anesthetic to get to the heart and soul of real issues. And what I’ve found on stage over the years is that, while making people laugh, I can drop in pearls of wisdom. – Tyler Perry

What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that’s how I approached the part. – Christopher Reeve

What we call wisdom is the result of all the wisdom of past ages. Our best institutions are like young trees growing upon the roots of the old trunks that have crumbled away. – Henry Ward Beecher

What we need and have not got at Westminster are real experience and wisdom, possessed by people who do not view politics as a career. – Peter Hitchens

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness? – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

What you do and say lives on in the hearts and minds of others, to some degree, with a definite result or consequence. – Charles F. Stanley

What you think of yourself is much more important than what others think of you.– Seneca

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me. – Nelson Mandela

Whatever you do in life, surround yourself with smart people who’ll argue with you. – John Wooden

When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective. – George C. Marshall

When an opponent comes forward, move in and greet him; if he wants to pull back, send him on his way. – Morihei Ueshiba

When anger enters the mind, wisdom departs. – Thomas A Kempis

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield. – Quintilian

When faced with a crisis, winners not only work on resolving it, but try to find something beneficial in the situation. In the midst of chaos, they manage to discover that fine vein of positive thinking that can lead to new chances for success. – Dr. Irene C. Kassorla

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange – my youth. – Sara Teasdale

When I rather guiltily read the books on which the TV series ‘Game Of Thrones’ is based, I was struck by one thing. The whole point of this saga is that ruthlessness pays, that evil generally wins, that justice is non-existent, and utter cynicism the only wisdom. It is the Middle Ages without the saving grace of Christianity. – Peter Hitchens

When I was born, the wisdom was that homosexuality was an illness; that it was caused largely by somebody’s mother, and a distorted relationship with the mother. And now, as I live my life – married to a husband, with kids – it’s an identity. – Andrew Solomon

When I wrote Living in the Light, I wanted to share about how I live my own life and to encourage people to tap into their own inner wisdom. – Shakti Gawain

When in doubt, don’t. – Benjamin Franklin

When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps. – Confucius

When looking for wise words, the best ones often come from our elders. – Catherine Pulsifer

When nobody around you seems to measure up, it’s time to check your yardstick. – Bill Lemley

When our imperfect judgments are aggregated in the right way, our collective intelligence is often excellent. – James Surowiecki

When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. – Isaac Asimov

When spirituality is the basis of your life, it gives you the strength, wisdom and courage to surmount the many storms of life that could destroy a weaker person who doesn’t have this foundation. – Radhanath Swami

When the interests of mankind are at stake, they will obey with joy the man whom they believe to be wiser than themselves. – Xenophon

When we contend, let us contend for all our rights – the doubtful and the certain, the unimportant and essential. It is as easy to contend, or even more so, for the whole as for a part. At the termination of the contest, secure all that our wisdom and valour and the fortune of war will permit. – John C. Calhoun

When we ignore wisdom, we then embrace foolishness. – Kilton Moyo

When we looked at the life cycle in our 40s, we looked to old people for wisdom. At 80, though, we look at other 80-year-olds to see who got wise and who not. Lots of old people don’t get wise, but you don’t get wise unless you age. – Erik Erikson

When written in Chinese, the word ‘crisis’ is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity. – John F. Kennedy

When you are in conversation with other people, choose your words wisely. Your words have great power and you should be aware of this. – Daniel Smith

When you betray somebody else, you also betray yourself. – Isaac Bashevis Singer

When you doubt, abstain. – Ambrose Bierce

When you experience difficulty at work or in your life, instead of looking back on it as something that was really challenging, look at it and ask yourself, ‘What wisdom did I learn from that?’ – Caroline Ghosn

When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, ‘Hey, I’ve got a new lease on this thing. So let’s go.’ – Robert Redford

When you give food to the poor, they call you a saint. When you ask why the poor have no food, they call you a communist. – Archbishop Helder Camara

When you give yourself, you receive more than you give. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

When you have success, be extra wary. When you are angry, take no action. When you are fearful, know you are going to exaggerate the dangers you face. – Robert Greene

When you say one thing, the clever person understands three. – Chinese Proverb

When you’re dealing with people who are offensive and irritating, you need to look past their behavior to their pain. When people are hurting others, it’s because they’re hurting on the inside. – Rick Warren

When you’re young, you wonder what all these old people are droning on about, trying to impart their wisdom. It’s not relevant to you because being young is such a specific thing. Thank God for that. Thank God for the young people who go out and demonstrate against rampant capitalism or whatever. – Helen Mirren

Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance. – Saadi

Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain

Where can we find greater structural clarity than in the wooden buildings of old? Where else can we find such unity of material, construction and form? here, the wisdom of whole generations is stored. – Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be. – Lactantius

Where is the justice of political power if it executes the murderer and jails the plunderer, and then itself marches upon neighboring lands, killing thousands and pillaging the very hills?” – Kahlil Gibran

Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? – S. Eliot

Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. – Francis of Assisi

Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge. – Leonardo da Vinci

Whether the aim is in heaven or on earth, wisdom or wealth, the essential condition of its pursuit and attainment is always security and order. – Johan Huizinga

Which way you choose to see your life in the future depends on your attitude today. – Amy E. Dean

While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure sign of a civilization in decline. – Henry Rollins

While people are quick to praise the wisdom of the crowd, being an old-school journalist, I look at the wisdom of the crowd and know it can quickly turn into a mob mentality. – Jason Calacanis

While planning for the future is a worthy endeavour, you have to also enjoy the moment and cultivate the of deciding when to toggle between present and future from the experiences of the past. – Brian Maddox

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother. – Erma Bombeck

Who is the wise man? He who sees what’s going to be born. – King Solomon

Who is wise in love, love most, say least. – Alfred Lord Tennyson

Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody. – Benjamin Franklin

Who knows whence he comes, where he is, and whither he tends, he, and he alone, is wise. – Johann Kaspar Lavater

Who then is free? The wise man who can command himself. – Horace Mann

Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you. – Friedrich Nietzche

Whosoever would be wise, and consequently happy, must raze out of his mind all those false mistaken notions that have been imprinting there from his infancy; and endeavour to expel that pernicious infection of error, which it has been so long hatching from erroneous customs and examples, and, which will prove fatal to it, if too long neglected. – Wellins Calcott

Why would anyone walk through life satisfied with the light from the candle of their own understanding when, by reaching out to our Heavenly Father, they could experience the bright sun of spiritual knowledge that would expand their minds with wisdom and fill their souls with joy? – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

Wise it is to comprehend the whole. – Edward Young

Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one. – Diogenes

Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; and beasts, by nature. – Marcus Tullius

Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be. – Anonymous

Wise men make more opportunities than they find. – Francis Bacon

Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something. – Plato

Wise men, though all laws were abolished, would lead the same lives. – Aristophanes

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

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away. – Arthur Helps

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground. – Arthur Helps

Wit and playfulness represent a desperately serious transcendence of evil. Humor is both a form of wisdom and a means of survival. – Tom Robbins

With age comes common sense and wisdom. – Nas

With age comes wisdom and a high sex drive. And the wisdom to enjoy it. – Amber Valletta

With age comes wisdom. – Sreesanth

With pride, there are many curses. With humility, there come many blessings. – Ezra Taft Benson

Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. – Baltasar Gracian

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom – and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech. – Benjamin Franklin

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose. – Herbie Hancock

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience. – L. Mencken

Women are stronger than men – they do not die of wisdom. – James Stephens

Women’s strength, women’s industry, women’s wisdom are humankind’s greatest untapped resource. The challenge then for U.N. Women is to show our diverse constituencies how this resource can be effectively tapped in ways that benefit us all. – Michelle Bachelet

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. – Socrates

Work like you don’t need the money. Love like you’ve never been hurt. Dance like nobody’s watching. – Satchel Paige

Year’s end is neither an end nor a beginning but a going on, with all the wisdom that experience can instill in us. – Hal Borland

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God’s gift, that’s why we call it the present. – Joan Rivers

You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear. – Sammy Davis, Jr.

You are a citizen of the world, and when you stop the labeling process you will begin to see God in every garden, every forest, every home, every creature, and every person, and inner peace will be your reward. – Wayne W. Dyer

You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success – or are they holding you back? – Clement Stone

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink. – John Heywood

You can never plan the future by the past. – Edmund Burke

You can observe a lot by watching. – Yogi Berra

You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason. – Plotinus

You can only die once. – Portuguese Proverb

You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life. – Ravi Zacharias

You can only make sense of the online world by going offline and by getting the wisdom and emotional clarity to know how to make the best use of the Internet. – Pico Iyer

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can’t practice to attain wisdom. – Herbie Hancock

You can’t be wise and in love at the same time. – Bob Dylan

You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. – Galileo Galilei

You can’t sweep other people off their feet, if you can’t be swept off your own. – Clarence Day

You have a gift that only you can give the world – that’s the whole reason you’re on the planet. Use your precious energy to build a magnificent life that really is attainable. The miracle of your existence calls for celebration every day.– Oprah

You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength. – Marcus Aurelius

You have to be burning with an idea, or a problem, or a wrong that you want to right. If you’re not passionate enough from the start, you’ll never stick it out. – Steve Jobs

You have to find out what’s right for you, so it’s trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself. – Teri Garr

You have to know when to stop – that’s wisdom. – Hubert de Givenchy

You have to take the bitter with the sweet. – Anonymous

You know the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing you don’t put tomato in a fruit salad. – Gene Kesselman

You lose or you win the fight – and anything in life – in your mind. I can look at how the person walks, how he speaks, his expressions. It’s a wisdom. Eyes are the mirror of the soul. So you can read a lot. – Wladimir Klitschko

You may not have very much sense. But if you have enough to keep your mouth shut and look wise, it will not be long before you acquire a wide reputation as a fountain of Wisdom. – Robert Elliott Gonzales

You must accept responsibility for your actions, but not the credit for your achievements. – Denis Waitley

You must learn day by day, year by year to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens. – Ethel Barrymore

You should never ask a horse or an actor to do something they cannot do. Wisdom will teach you to find out what they can do and then make it easy for them. – Tommy Lee Jones

You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact. – Harry Dean Stanton

Young people, you need the wisdom of age, just as some of us older ones need your enthusiasm for life. – Ezra Taft Benson

Your art kind of changes as you get older, by nature of the fact that you’re hopefully gaining wisdom and you’re starting to watch things with a better overview. – Sheryl Crow

Your key to freedom lies in your power to control your thoughts. To teach is to touch a life forever. Put your interest in the future, because you’re going to spend the rest of your life there. Reflective thinking turns experience into insight. – John Maxwell

Your law may be perfect, your knowledge of human affairs may be such as to enable you to apply it with wisdom and skill, and yet without individual acquaintance with men, their haunts and habits, the pursuit of the profession becomes difficult, slow, and expensive. – William Dunbar

Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again. – Joseph Campbell

Your task is to build a better world, God said. I answered, How? This world is such a large, vast place, and there’s nothing I can do that seems to matter. But God in all His wisdom said, just build a better you. – Anonymous

You’ve got to go out on a limb sometimes because that’s where the fruit is. – Will Rogers

You’ve heard that it’s wise to learn from experience, but it is wiser to learn from the experience of others. – Rick Warren

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom Quotes From Wikiquote

  • Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.
    • Peter Abelard (1079–1142) Sic et Non, Prologus; translation from Frank Pierrepont Graves A History of Education During the Middle Ages and the Transition to Modern Times ([1918] 2005) p. 53.
  • Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise — even in their own field.
    • Isaac Asimov, The Roving Mind (1983), Ch. 25
  • For many of my years — perhaps twelve — had passed away since my nineteenth, when, upon the reading of Cicero’s Hortensius, I was roused to a desire for wisdom. And here I was, still postponing the abandonment of this world’s happiness to devote myself to the search. For not just the finding alone, but also the bare search for it, ought to have been preferred above the treasures and kingdoms of this world; better than all bodily pleasures, though they were to be had for the taking.
    • Augustine, Confessions, A. Outler, trans. (Dover: 2002), Book 8, Chapter 7, p. 139
  • A fence to wisdom is silence.
    • Akiba ben Joseph Pirkei Avot, 3:17
  • Wisdom is the science of the spirit, just as knowledge is the science of matter. Knowledge is separative and objective, whilst wisdom is synthetic and subjective. Knowledge divides; wisdom unites. Knowledge differentiates whilst wisdom blends.
    • Alice Bailey Initiation, Human & Solar, Lucis Publishing (1922)
  • Wisdom concerns the one Self, knowledge deals with the not-self whilst the understanding is the point of view of the Ego [soul or higher self], or Thinker, or his relation between them.
    • Alice Bailey Initiation, Human & Solar, Lucis Publishing (1922)
  • Wisdom, actuated and motivated by love, and intelligently applied to world problems, is much needed today… Many more must love with wisdom, and appreciate the group aspiration, before we shall see the next reality to be known and to emerge out of the darkness which we are now in the process of dispelling.
    • Alice Bailey Esoteric Psychology, Vol. 1: A Treatise on the Seven Rays, Lucis Publishing (1936)
  • The storyteller is a man who has counsel for his readers. But if today “having counsel” is beginning to have an old-fashioned ring, this is because the communicability of experience is decreasing. In consequence we have no counsel either for ourselves or for others. After all, counsel is less an answer to a question than a proposal concerning the continuation of a story which is just unfolding. To seek this counsel one would first have to be able to tell the story. … Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom. The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
    • Walter Benjamin, “The Storyteller”
  • Do not go by revelation;
    Do not go by tradition;
    Do not go by hearsay;
    Do not go on the authority of sacred texts;
    Do not go on the grounds of pure logic;
    Do not go by a view that seems rational;
    Do not go by reflecting on mere appearances;
    Do not go along with a considered view because you agree with it;
    Do not go along on the grounds that the person is competent;
    Do not go along because “the recluse is our teacher.”
    Kalamas, when you yourselves know: These things are unwholesome, these things are blameworthy; these things are censured by the wise; and when undertaken and observed, these things lead to harm and ill, abandon them…
    Kalamas, when you know for yourselves: These are wholesome; these things are not blameworthy; these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed, these things lead to benefit and happiness, having undertaken them, abide in them.

    • Gautama Buddha, Kalama Sutta – Angutarra Nikaya 3.65
  • Wisdom is purified by morality, and morality is purified by wisdom: where one is, the other is, the moral man has wisdom and the wise man has morality, and the combination of morality and wisdom is called the highest thing in the world.
    • Gautama Buddha, Digha Nikaya, M. Walshe, trans. (1987), Sutta 4 (Sonadanda Sutta), verse 22, p. 131
  • But these are foolish things to all the wise,
    And I love wisdom more than she loves me;
    My tendency is to philosophise
    On most things, from a tyrant to a tree;
    But still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies,
    What are we? and whence come we? what shall be
    Our ultimate existence? What’s our present?
    Are questions answerless, and yet incessant.

    • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto VI, Stanza 63
  • If you look incessantly for variety, sooner or later you will discover that you need more wisdom.
    • Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Writings by Fausto Cercignani, 2014, quote 51
  • It is certainly a good thing always to forgive with generosity, but it is no doubt just never to forget the wrongs received: they belong to the route that leads to inner maturity.
    • Fausto Cercignani in: Brian Morris, Simply Transcribed. Quotations from Fausto Cercignani, 2013, p. 21
  • Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying yes begins things. Saying yes is how things grow. Saying yes leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.
    • Stephen Colbert Knox College commencement address (3 June 2006)
  • It seems the part of wisdom.
    • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book IV, line 336
  • Knowledge is proud that he has learn’d so much;
    Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

    • William Cowper, The Task (1785), Book VI, line 96
  • The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.
    • Clarence Darrow, “Why I Am An Agnostic” (1929)
  • “I do not know.” The person who cannot make that statement is one who will never learn anything. And I have prided myself on my ability to learn.
    • Said by the orcish warchief Thrall in Keith Decandido, Cycle of Hatred (2006)
  • To finish the moment, to find the journey’s end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.
    • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Second Series (1844), Experience
  • Man thinks
    Brutes have no wisdom, since they know not his:
    Can we divine their world?

    • George Eliot, The Spanish Gypsy (1868), Book II
  • Cleverness is not wisdom. And not to think mortal thoughts is to see few days.
    • Euripides Bacchæ l.395
  • For in much wisdom there is much sorrow;
    whoever increases knowledge increases grief.

    • Ecclesiastes Chapter 1 Verse 18
  • Wisdom is a better defence for the wise than ten princes in the city.
    • Ecclesiastes Chapter 7 Verse 19
  • How will people become wise
when they take hold of a plow
or pride themselves
in how well they handle an ox prod,
when they drive cattle
and are absorbed with their work,
and their conversation is about bulls?

  • Ecclesiasticus 38:25 CEB
  • A wise man changes his mind sometimes, but a fool never. To change your mind is the best evidence you have one. The last redoubt holding out for me was the year-day principle (on which I had written a defense in 1972 for the Southern Publishing Association Daniel volume which was published in 1978). This collapsed when I handled hundreds of books of commentary on Revelation in the Library of Congress stacks and found that the respective authors had in many cases suggested dates that seemed appropriate for their own time but ridiculous later. It became clear that we, as Adventists, had done the same as our predecessors.
    • Desmond Ford Desmond Ford on His Previous Defense of the Year Day Principle”, Adventist Today, 2006
  • Wisdom is intelligence in context.
    • Raheel Farooq
  • Laissez dire les sots: le savoir a son prix.
    • Let fools the studious despise,
      There’s nothing lost by being wise.
    • Jean de La Fontaine, Fables, VIII. 19. Quote reported in Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 419-23.
  • Wisdom makes but a slow defence against trouble, though at last a sure one.
    • Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (1766), Chapter XXI
  • … quantum theory reminds us, as Bohr has put it, of the old wisdom that when searching for harmony in life one must never forget that in the drama of existence we are ourselves both players and spectators. It is understandable that in our scientific relation to nature our own activity becomes very important when we have to deal with parts of nature into which we can penetrate only by using the most elaborate tools.
    • Werner Heisenberg: (1958). “The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory”. Physics and Philosophy 19: 44–58.
  • A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.
    • Hillel the Younger Pirkei Avot 2:5
  • But the wisdom from above is first of all pure, then peaceable, reasonable, ready to obey, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, not hypocritical. Moreover, the fruit of righteousness is sown in peaceful conditions for those who are making peace.
    • James, James 3:17, 18, NWT
  • There is nothing so easy as to be wise for others ; a species of prodigality, by the by — for such wisdom is wholly wasted.
    • Letitia Elizabeth Landon, Romance and Reality (1831), Vol. I chapter 15
  • Ripe in wisdom was he, but patient, and simple, and childlike.
    • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie (1847), Part I, III, line 11
  • The sons of this system of things are wiser in a practical way toward their own generation than the sons of the light are.
    • Luke 16ː8b; New World Translation
  • Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
    Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
    To weave it into fabric

    • Edna St. Vincent Millay, Upon this age, that never speaks its mind” (1938) “Huntsman, what quarry?”
  • Though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
    At wisdom’s gate, and to simplicity
    Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
    Where no ill seems.

    • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book III, line 686
  • But to know
    That which before us lies in daily life,
    Is the prime wisdom.

    • John Milton, Paradise Lost (1667; 1674), Book VIII, line 192
  • Socrates * * *
    Whom, well inspir’d, the oracle pronounc’d
    Wisest of men.

    • John Milton, Paradise Regained (1671), Book IV, line 274
  • O the depth of God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments are and beyond tracing out his ways are! For “who has come to know Jehovah’s mind, or who has become his adviser?” Or, “who has first given to him, so that it must be repaid to him?” Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
    • Paul of Tarsus, Romans 11:33-36, NWT
  • Wisdom … never closes her school of thought but always opens her doors to those who thirst for the sweet water of discourse, and pouring on them an unstinted stream of undiluted doctrine, persuades them to be drunken with the drunkenness which is soberness itself.
    • Philo, Every Good Man is Free, 13
  • Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise?
    ‘Tis but to know how little can be known,
    To see all other’s faults, and feel our own.

    • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Man (1733-34), Epistle IV, line 260
  • Doth not wisdom cry? and understanding put forth her voice? She standeth in the top of high places, by the way in the places of the paths. She crieth at the gates, at the entry of the city, at the coming in at the doors. Unto you, O men, I call; and my voice is to the sons of man. O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart. Hear; for I will speak of excellent things; and the opening of my lips shall be right things. For my mouth shall speak truth; and wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge. Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold. For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it. I wisdom dwell with prudence, and find out knowledge of witty inventions. The fear of the Lord is to hate evil: pride, and arrogancy, and the evil way, and the froward mouth, do I hate. Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom: I am understanding; I have strength.
    • The poetic personification of Wisdom speaking in Book of Proverbs 8:1-14 (KJV)
  • I lead in the way of righteousness, in the midst of the paths of judgment: That I may cause those that love me to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures. The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth: While as yet he had not made the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the world. When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the depth: When he established the clouds above: when he strengthened the fountains of the deep: When he gave to the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment: when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him; Rejoicing in the habitable part of his earth; and my delights were with the sons of men. Now therefore hearken unto me, O ye children: for blessed are they that keep my ways. Hear instruction, and be wise, and refuse it not. Blessed is the man that heareth me, watching daily at my gates, waiting at the posts of my doors. For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the LORD. But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.
    • The poetic personification of Wisdom speaking in Book of Proverbs 8:20 – 36 (KJV)
  • The wise person storms the city of the mighty,  and overthrows the stronghold in which they trust.
    • Proverbs 21:22
  • So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done.
    • François Rabelais, Pantagruel (1532), Chapter XXIV
  • Students who memorize a lot of disconnected facts are not people who will later connect that knowledge into new discoveries.
    • Research Paper Writings Expert, 2016
  • You are that rarest of creatures: a man with the wisdom to see beyond his own time.
    • Alastair Reynolds, The Prefect (2007), Chapter 10
  • Wisdom precludes boldness.
    • Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind (2007), Chapter 87
  • To realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
    • Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 167
  • Having granted the excellence of these maxims, I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels… there one does find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, he certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that. He says, for instance, “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come.” Then he says, “There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom”; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, “Take no thought for the morrow,” and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count. I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians who did believe that the second coming was imminent. I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden. The early Christians did really believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In that respect, clearly He was not so wise as some other people have been, and He was certainly not superlatively wise.
    • Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian (1927), “Defects in Christ’s Teaching”
  • There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs. Then there is the curious story of the fig-tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig-tree. “He was hungry; and seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came if haply He might find anything thereon; and when he came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: ‘No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever’…. and Peter…. saith unto Him: ‘Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away.'” This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to History. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects.
    • Bertrand Russell, Why I am not a Christian (1927), “The Moral Problem”
  • I am interested in a phase that I think we are entering. I call it “teleological evolution,” evolution with a purpose. The idea of evolution by design, designing the future, anticipating the future. I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?
    • Jonas Salk, in Academy of Achievement interview, in San Diego, California (16 May 1991)
  • Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
    • George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. 5 (1906), Ch. 8
  • The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure.
    • E. F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973), p. 35
  • Full oft we see
    Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly.

    • William Shakespeare, All’s Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act I, scene 1, line 115
  • Wisdom and fortune combating together,
    If that the former dare but what it can,
    No chance may shake it.

    • William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act III, scene 13, line 79
  • Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
    • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act I, scene 5, line 48
  • To that dauntless temper of his mind,
    He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour
    To act in safety.

    • William Shakespeare, Macbeth (1605), Act III, scene 1, line 52
  • Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.
    • William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night (c. 1601-02), Act I, scene 5, line 14
  • My son, if you accept my sayings
And treasure up my commandments,
By making your ear attentive to wisdom
And inclining your heart to discernment;
Moreover, if you call out for understanding
And raise your voice for discernment;
If you keep seeking for it as for silver,
And you keep searching for it as for hidden treasures;
Then you will understand the fear of Jehovah,
And you will find the knowledge of God.
For Jehovah himself gives wisdom;
From his mouth come knowledge and discernment.

Solomon, Book of Proverbs 2: 1-6
  • Acquire wisdom, acquire understanding. Do not forget, and do not turn aside from the sayings of my mouth. Do not leave it, and it will keep you. Love it, and it will safeguard you. Wisdom is the prime thing. Acquire wisdom; and with all that you acquire, acquire understanding. Highly esteem it, and it will exalt you. It will glorify you because you embrace it. To your head it will give a wreath of charm; a crown of beauty it will bestow upon you.
    • Solomon, Book of Proverbs, 4: 4-9
  • Be not wise in thine own eyes.
    • Solomon, Proverbs 3:7, King James Version
  • Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you.
    • Solomon 4:6, New International Version
  • Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
    • Solomon 4:7, New International Version
  • O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
    • Solomon, Proverbs 8:5, King James Version
  • For wisdom is better than rubies; And all the things that may be desired are not to be compared unto it.
    • Solomon Proverbs 8:11, American Standard Version
  • He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. And the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart.
    • Solomon, Book of Proverbs 11:29
  • The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction.
  • Wisdom of Solomon 6:17 NRSV
  • Those who get it obtain friendship with God.
  • Wisdom of Solomon 7:14 NRSV
  • For those who despise wisdom and instruction are doomed.
    Vain is their hope, fruitless their labours,
    and worthless their works.

    • Book of Wisdom Chapter 3 Verse 11, New American Bible revised edition
  • It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.
    • Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010) Epistemology and Subtractive Knowledge, p. 78.
  • ‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise.
    • Alfred Tennyson, In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849), Part CVIII
  • Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool.
    • Alfred Tennyson, Locksley Hall Sixty Years After (1886), Stanza 124
  • The wisest man is he who can account for his actions.
    • Umar http://prayertiming.com/iq/index.php?nCatId=426
  • Wisdom is oftimes nearer when we stoop
    Than when we soar.

    • William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814), Book III, line 232
  • As for Wisdom, the greatest blessing, does not incontinence exclude it and drive men to the opposite? Or don’t you think that incontinence prevents them from attending to useful things and understanding them, by drawing them away to things pleasant, and often so stuns their perception of good and evil that they choose the worse instead of the better?
    • Xenophon, Socrates in Memorabilia, 4.5
  • There is no wisdom without leisure.
    • Ancient Jewish Wisdom, cited by W. B. Yeats in an address given 3/28/1923.
  • On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows,
    In every rill a sweet instruction flows.

    • Edward Young, Love of Fame (1725-28), Satire I, line 249
  • Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer;
    Next day the fatal precedent will plead;
    Thus on, till wisdom is push’d out of life.

    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night I, line 390
  • Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines,
    And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive,
    What is she, but the means of happiness?
    That unobtain’d, than folly more a fool.

    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night II, line 496
  • The man of wisdom is the man of years.
    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night V, line 775
  • But wisdom, awful wisdom! which inspects,
    Discerns, compares, weighs, separates, infers,
    Seizes the right, and holds it to the last.

    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VIII, line 1,253
  • Teach me my days to number, and apply
    My trembling heart to wisdom.

    • Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 1,312
  • Putting human affairs in exact formulas shows in itself a lack of the sense of humor and therefore a lack of wisdom.
    • Lin Yutang, The Importance of Living (1937)
  • To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.
    • Roger Ascham, Dedication to All the Gentlemen and Yeomen of England
  • A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.
    • Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici; quoted as “That insolent paradox”
  • The wisdom of our ancestors.
    • Edmund Burke, Observations an a Late Publicatian on the Present State of the Nation, Volume I, p. 516.
  • Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
    • Cato. In Plutarch’s Life of Cato
  • Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart
    Must hold both sisters, never seen apart.

    • William Cowper, Expostulation, line 634
  • Some people are more nice than wise.
    • William Cowper, Mutual Forbearance
  • But they whom truth and wisdom lead
    Can gather honey from a weed.

    • William Cowper, Pine-Apple and Bee, line 35
  • Who are a little wise the best fools be.
    • John Donne, The Triple Fool
  • In much wisdom is much grief.
    • Ecclesiastes. I. 18
  • The words of the wise are as goads.
    • Ecclesiastes, XII. 11
  • Nequicquam sapere sapientem, qui ipse sibi prodesse non quiret.
    • The wise man is wise in vain who cannot be wise to his own advantage.
    • Ennius, I. Quoted by Cicero, De Officii, 3, 15
  • No one could be so wise as Thurlow looked.
    • Charles James Fox. See Campbell’s Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Volume V, p. 661; also 551.
  • Some are weather-wise, some are otherwise.
    • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard (1735)
  • Die Weisheit ist nur in der Wahrheit.
    • Wisdom is only found in truth.
    • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa, III
  • The heart is wiser than the intellect.
    • Josiah Gilbert Holland, Kathrina, Part II, Stanza 9
  • Chiefs who no more in bloody fights engage,
    But, wise through time, and narrative with age,
    In summer-days like grasshoppers rejoice,
    A bloodless race, that send a feeble voice.

    • Homer, The Iliad, Book III, line 199; Alexander Pope’s translation
  • For never, never, wicked man was wise.
    • Homer, The Odyssey, Book II, line 320; Alexander Pope’s translation
  • In youth and beauty wisdom is but rare!
    • Homer, The Odyssey, Book VII, line 379; Alexander Pope’s translation
  • How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
    • Homer, The Odyssey, Book XIII, line 375; Alexander Pope’s translation
  • Utiliumque sagax rerum et divina futuri.
    • Sagacious in making useful discoveries.
    • Horace, Ars Poetica (18 BC), 218
  • Sapere aude.
    • Dare to be wise.
    • Horace, Epistles, I. 2. 40
  • Quis nam igitur liber? Sapiens qui sibi imperiosus.
    • Who then is free? The wise man who can govern himself.
    • Horace, Satires, II. 7. 83
  • He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.
    • Job. V. 13
  • Wisdom shall die with you.
    • Job, XII. 2
  • The price of wisdom is above rubies.
    • Job, XXVIII. 18
  • Days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom.
    • Job, XXXII. 7
  • Great men are not always wise.
    • Job, XXXII. 9
  • Away, thou strange justifier of thyself, to be wiser than thou wert, by the event.
    • Ben Jonson, Silent Woman, Act II, scene 2. “Wise after the event.”
  • Victrix fortunæ sapientia.
    • Wisdom is the conqueror of fortune.
    • Juvenal, Satires, XIII. 20
  • Il est plus aisé d’être sage pour les autres, que pour soi-même.
    • It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.
    • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maximes
  • Quisquis plus justo non sapit, ille sapit.
    • Whoever is not too wise is wise.
    • Martial, Epigrammata, XIV. 10. 2
  • * Be wise;
    Soar not too high to fall; but stoop to rise.

    • Philip Massinger, Duke of Milan, Act I, scene 2, line 45
  • Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
    • Matthew. X. 16
  • Wisdom is justified of her children.
    • Matthew, XI. 19; Luke, VII. 35
  • A little too wise they say do ne’er live long.
    • Thomas Middleton, The Phœnix (1603-04), Act I, scene 1
  • Il est bon de frotter et limer notre cervelle centre celle d’autrui.
    • It is good to rub and polish our brain against that of others.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book I, Chapter XXIV
  • The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness: her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book I, Chapter XXV
  • Le sage vit tant qu’il doibt, non pas tent qu’il peut.
    • A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book II, Chapter III
  • Qui aura esté une fois bien fol ne sera nulle aultre fois bien sage.
    • He who has once been very foolish will at no other time be very wise.
    • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, Book III, Chapter VI
  • O the depth of God’s riches and wisdom and knowledge! How unsearchable his judgments are and beyond tracing out his ways are! 34 For “who has come to know Jehovah’s mind, or who has become his adviser?” 35 Or, “who has first given to him, so that it must be repaid to him?” 36 Because from him and by him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen.
    • Romans 11:33, New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures
  • Seven wise men on an old black settle,
    Seven wise men of the Mermaid Inn,
    Ringing blades of the one right metal,
    What is the best that a blade can win?

    • Alfred Noyes, Tales of The Mermaid Tavern, II
  • Some men never spake a wise word, yet doe wisely; some on the other side doe never a wise deed, and yet speake wisely.
    • Sir Thomas Overbury, Crumms fal’n from King James Talk. In Works
  • When swelling buds their od’rous foliage shed,
    And gently harden into fruit, the wise
    Spare not the little offsprings, if they grow
    Redundant.

    • John Philips, Cider, Book I
  • Feliciter sapit qui alieno periculo sapit.
    • He gains wisdom in a happy way, who gains it by another’s experience.
    • Plautus, Mercator, IV. 7. 40
  • Nemo solus satis sapit.
    • No man is wise enough by himself.
    • Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, III. 3. 12
  • Nemo mortalium omnibus horis sapit.
    • No one is wise at all times.
    • Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, VII. 41. 2
  • Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the street.
    • Proverbs. I. 20
  • Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.
    • Proverbs, IV. 7
  • Wisdom is better than rubies.
    • Proverbs, VIII. 11
  • Get wisdom, because it is better than gold: and purchase prudence, for it is more precious than silver.
    • Proverbs 16:16
  • “Those who seek me diligently find me.”
    • The voice of Wisdom in Proverbs VIII. 17
  • Be wisely worldly, but not worldly wise.
    • Francis Quarles, Emblems, Book II. Em. 2
  • Ce n’est pas être sage
    D’être plus sage qu’il ne le faut.

    • It is not wise to be wiser than is necessary.
    • Quinault, Armide
  • The power is yours, but not the sight;
    You see not upon what you tread;
    You have the ages for your guide,
    But not the wisdom to be led.

    • Edwin Arlington Robinson, Cassandra
  • Wouldst thou wisely, and with pleasure,
    Pass the days of life’s short measure,
    From the slow one counsel take,
    But a tool of him ne’er make;
    Ne’er as friend the swift one know,
    Nor the constant one as foe.

    • Friedrich Schiller, Proverbs of Confucius, E. A. Bowring’s translation
  • The Italian seemes wise, and is wise; the Spaniard seemes wise, and is a foole; the French seemes a foole, and is wise; and the English seemes a foole and is a foole.
    • Quoted as a common proverb by Thomas Scot, in The Highwaies of God and the King, p. 8. (1623)
  • Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life—in a firmness of mind and mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do, as well as to talk; and to make our actions and words all of a color.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistles, XX
  • Nulli sapere casu obtigit.
    • No man was ever wise by chance.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, LXXVI
  • Melius in malis sapimus, secunda rectum auferunt.
    • We become wiser by adversity; prosperity destroys our appreciation of the right.
    • Seneca the Younger, Epistolæ Ad Lucilium, XCIV
  • As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
    • Socrates, in Plato, Phaedrus, Section CCXXXV
  • A short saying oft contains much wisdom.
    • Sophocles, Aletes, Frag. 99
  • Happy those
    Who in the after-days shall live, when Time
    Hath spoken, and the multitude of years
    Taught wisdom to mankind!

    • Robert Southey, Joan of Arc, Book I
  • The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
    • Charles Spurgeon, Gleanings among the SheavesThe First Lesson
  • By Wisdom wealth is won;
    But riches purchased wisdom yet for none.

    • Bayard Taylor, The Wisdom of Ali
  • “The Prophet’s words were true;
    The mouth of Ali is the golden door
    Of Wisdom.”
    When his friends to Ali bore
    These words, he smiled and said: “And should they ask
    The same until my dying day, the task
    Were easy; for the stream from Wisdom’s well,
    Which God supplies, is inexhaustible.”

    • Bayard Taylor, The Wisdom of Ali
  • True wisdom consists not in seeing what is immediately before our eyes, but in foreseeing what is to come.
    • Terence, Adelphi, III. 3. 32
  • The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.
    • I Timothy, XVI. 8
  • Wisdom alone is true ambition’s aim
    Wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame,
    Obtained with labour, for mankind employed,
    And then, when most you share it, best enjoyed.

    • William Whitehead, On Nobility
  • Wisdom sits alone,
    Topmost in heaven:—she is its light—its God;
    And in the heart of man she sits as high—
    Though grovelling eyes forget her oftentimes,
    Seeing but this world’s idols. The pure mind
    Sees her forever: and in youth we come
    Fill’d with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
    Worshipping God through her sweet altar fires,
    And then is knowledge “good.”

    • Nathaniel Parker Willis, The Scholar of Thibet. Ben Khorat, Part II, line 93
  • Wisdom is the gray hair unto men, and an unspotted life is old age.
    • Wisdom of Solomon, IV. 8
  • And he is oft the wisest man
    Who is not wise at all.

    • William Wordsworth, The Oak and the Broom
  • The wise man is but a clever infant, spelling letters from a hieroglyphical prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity.
    • Thomas Carlyle, p. 617
  • The heart is wiser than the intellect.
    • Josiah Gilbert Holland, p. 616
  • What in me is dark, Illumine, what is low, raise and support.
    • John Milton, p. 617
  • For knowledge to become wisdom, and for the soul to grow, the soul must be rooted in God: and it is through prayer that there comes to us that which is the strength of our strength, and the virtue of our virtue, the Holy Spirit.
    • William Mountford, p. 616
  • The question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Temple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father’s business, and becoming wise to God.
    • Frederick William Robertson, p. 617
  • Drop, drop—in our sleep, upon the heart
    sorrow falls, memory’s pain,
    and to us, though against our very will,
    even in our own despite,
    comes wisdom
    by the awful grace of God.

    • Aeschylus, Agamemnon. The above lines are from Edith Hamilton, trans., Three Greek Plays, p. 170 (1937).
  • [The argument of Alcidamas:] Everyone honours the wise. Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien, and honour him even to this day.
    • Aristotle, Rhetoric, book 2, The Complete Works of Aristotle, rev. Oxford trans., ed. Jonathan Barnes, vol. 2, p. 2228–29 (1984)
  • Ask counsel of both times—of the ancient time what is best, and of the latter time what is fittest.
    • Francis Bacon, “Of Great Place”, The Essays, or Counsels Civil & Moral of Francis Bacon, p. 48 (1905). Based on the 1625 edition but with modernized spelling.
  • Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.
    • Felix Frankfurter, Henslee v. Union Planters Bank, 335 U.S. 600 (1948) (dissenting)
  • Standing in this presence, mindful of the solemnity of this occasion, feeling the emotions which no one may know until he senses the great weight of responsibility for himself, I must utter my belief in the divine inspiration of the founding fathers.
    • Warren G. Harding, inaugural address, March 4, 1921.
  • The poet’s aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory.
    • Horace, Ars Poetica, lines 333–37.
  • That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.
    • Attributed to John Stuart Mill.
  • Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.
    • John Patrick, The Teahouse of the August Moon, act I, scene i, p. 6 (1957).
  • When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
    • Attributed to Mark Twain in The Reader’s Digest (September 1939), p. 22.

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