Motivational Quotes

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

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Bible

Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.

Socrates

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

Garbutt, Frank

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

Young, Andrew

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.

Titus Maccius Plautus

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Bible

As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.

Buddha

No matter how long he lives, no man ever becomes as wise as the average woman of forty-eight.

Mencken, H. L.

10.

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander

11.

Wisdom alone is the science of others sciences.

Plato

12.

If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.

Buscaglia, Leo

13.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

14.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Russell, Bertrand

15.

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

Marx, Eleanor

16.

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

17.

Wise men still seek Him today.

Bell, Dan

18.

Wisdom is not attained by years, but by ability.

Plautus, Titus Maccius

19.

For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.

Bacon, Francis

20.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

21.

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

Bible

22.

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

James Boswell

23.

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

Confucius

24.

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

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

25.

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

Ward, William A.

26.

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

27.

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

28.

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

29.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Hoover, Herbert Clark

30.

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

31.

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

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg

32.

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

Goldsmith, Oliver

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

Action should culminate in wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita

36.

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

37.

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

Gabirol, Ibn

38.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Quarles, Francis

39.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

Franklin, Benjamin

40.

If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the man who goes back and forth on it.

Zenrin

41.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Bacon, Francis

42.

By others faults the wise correct their own.

Proverb

43.

Who is wise? One who learns from all.

Talmud, The

44.

Wisdom does not show itself so much in precept as in life -- in firmness of mind and a mastery of appetite. It teaches us to do as well as to talk; and to make our words and actions all of a color.

Seneca

45.

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

Nietzsche, Friedrich

46.

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

Cheever, John

47.

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

Cullen Hightower

48.

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

Robbie Gass

49.

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

50.

Wisdom is perishable. Unlike information or knowledge, it cannot be stored in a computer or recorded in a book. It expires with each passing generation.

Taylor, Sid