Motivational Quotes

Wisdom

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

- Mencken, H. L.

Best Quotes about Wisdom

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

Bible

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

Gabirol, Ibn

Wise care keeps what it has gained.

Proverb, Danish

We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

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

Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

The price of wisdom is eternal thought.

Birch, Frank

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

Azai, Rabbi Ben

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

10.

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

Oprah Winfrey

11.

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

Talmud, The

12.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

13.

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

Cocteau, Jean

14.

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

Lichtenberg, Georg C.

15.

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

Young, Andrew

16.

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

Tolstoy, Count Leo

17.

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

18.

Wisdom overcomes fortune.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

19.

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.

Borland, Hal

20.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know -- even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction -- than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.

Asimov, Isaac

21.

The wise person has long ears and a short tongue.

Proverb, German

22.

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

23.

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

Levenson, Samuel

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Schopenhauer, Arthur

27.

Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.

Clemenceau, Georges

28.

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.

29.

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

Marilyn vos Savant

30.

Wisdom is nothing more than healed pain.

Lee, Robert E.

31.

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

Brecht, Bertolt

32.

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phaedrus

33.

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

Maeterlinck, Maurice

34.

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

Ziggy

35.

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.

Blake, William

36.

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

Coolidge, Calvin

37.

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

38.

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

Walt Whitman

39.

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

40.

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

Connolly, Cyril

41.

Some men are wise, and some are otherwise.

Smollett, Tobias G.

42.

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

43.

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

Watson, Thomas J.

44.

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

Cullen Hightower

45.

There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

46.

More wisdom is latent in things as they are than in all the words men use.