Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.

- Hoffer, Eric

Best Quotes about Wisdom

As it is the characteristic of great wits to say much in few words, so small wits seem to have the gift of speaking much and saying nothing.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.

Cato The Elder

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

A wise woman puts a grain of sugar into everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.

Rowland, Helen

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant

The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise. [Proverbs 15: 31]

Bible

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

Socrates

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man. Everything that exists has brought with it its own peculiar lesson. The mountain teaches stability and grandeur; the ocean immensity and change. Forests, lakes, and rivers, clouds and winds, stars and flowers, stupendous glaciers and crystal snowflakes, -- every form of animate or inanimate existence, leaves its impress upon the soul of man. Even the bee and ant have brought their little lessons of industry and economy.

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Gabirol, Ibn

10.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

11.

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

Bible

12.

Committing a great truth to memory is admirable; committing it to life is wisdom.

Ward, William A.

13.

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

Young, Andrew

14.

Beauty is the wisdom of women. Wisdom is the beauty of men.

Proverb, Chinese

15.

A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.

Collins, John Churton

16.

Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.

Franklin, Benjamin

17.

I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.

Hesse, Hermann

18.

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

19.

Blessed is the man who finds wisdom, the man who gains understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold. She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her. [Proverbs 3:13-15]

Bible

20.

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

21.

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

Butler, Samuel

22.

The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.

Chaucer, Geoffrey

23.

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

24.

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

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

25.

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

26.

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

27.

Who is a wise man? He who learns of all men.

Talmud, The

28.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

29.

Wisdom is knowledge, rightly applied.

30.

Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

31.

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

32.

The heart of the wise man lies quiet like limpid water.

Proverb, Camerounian

33.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

34.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

35.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

36.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Gabirol, Ibn

37.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

38.

The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.

Shaw, George Bernard

39.

Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.

Fitzhenry, R. I.

40.

Force without wisdom falls of its own weight.

Horace

41.

Wisdom is what's left after we've run out of personal opinions.

Cullen Hightower

42.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

43.

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

Garbutt, Frank

44.

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

45.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

46.

A word to the wise is not sufficient if it doesn't make sense.

Thurber, James

47.

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

Epictetus

48.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

49.

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

50.

The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go hey, I'm Vine Man.

Handey, Jack