Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Basho, Matsuo

Best Quotes about Wisdom

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.

Adams, James Truslow

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

The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.

Socrates

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

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

Talmud, The

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

Ziggy

10.

The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.

Bonaparte, Napoleon

11.

This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

12.

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

Bhagavad Gita

13.

Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.

Elizabeth, Queen

14.

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

Bible

15.

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

Robbie Gass

16.

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

Cheever, John

17.

Great men are the commissioned guides of mankind, who rule their fellows because they are wiser.

Carlyle, Thomas

18.

The live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart.

Bhagavad Gita

19.

Wisdom hath her excesses, and no less need of moderation than folly.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

20.

Wisdom is better than weapons of war. [9:18b, Ecclesiastes]

Bible

21.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

22.

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

Pindar

23.

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

Levenson, Samuel

24.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

25.

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

Twain, Mark

26.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

27.

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

28.

The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.

Colton, Charles Caleb

29.

Understanding the limitations of human beings as well as understanding your own is the beginning of true wisdom.

30.

No man is wise enough by himself.

Titus Maccius Plautus

31.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

32.

Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.

Covey, Stephen R.

33.

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

Edmund Burke

34.

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

Bible

35.

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

Cocteau, Jean

36.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

37.

There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.

Hoagland, Edward

38.

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

39.

There is no wisdom save in truth. Truth is everlasting, but our ideas about truth are changeable. Only a little of the first fruits of wisdom, only a few fragments of the boundless heights, breadths and depths of truth, have I been able to gather.

Luther, Martin

40.

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Gibran, Kahlil

41.

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

42.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

43.

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

Quintilian

44.

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

Wittgenstein, Ludwig

45.

A life of frustration is inevitable for any coach whose main enjoyment is winning.

Noll, Chuck

46.

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Blake, William

47.

Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

48.

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

Garbutt, Frank

49.

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

Stanislavisky, Konstantin

50.

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

Oprah Winfrey