Wisdom Quotations
Andre Gide:
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
Baltasar Gracian:
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
Cicero:
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Edith Wharton:
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience
does not become a part of the moral tissue.
Elbert Hubbard:
To know when to be generous and when firm—that is wisdom.
Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.
Georg C. Lichtenberg:
One's first step in wisdom is to question everything - and one's last is to come
to terms with everything.
George Bernard Shaw:
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
George Burns:
Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy
driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.
George Santayana:
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
Groucho Marx:
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
Helen Keller:
I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding
which bringeth peace.
Henry David Thoreau:
A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.
Henry David Thoreau:
It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Immanuel Kant:
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant:
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life. [French Philosopher]
Isaac D'Israeli:
The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by
quotations.
J. Michael Straczynski:
The quality of our thoughts is bordered on all sides by our facility with
language.
Jonathan Kozol:
Pick battles big enough to matter, small enough to win. On Being a Teacher.
Lin Yutang:
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.
Marcel Proust:
The stellar universe is not so difficult of comprehension as the real actions of
other people.
Mark Twain:
The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our
wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a
happy and a virtuous people. [American Author]
Mark Twain - attributed in error:
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to
have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at
how much the old man had learned in seven years. [American Author]
Marlene Dietrich:
I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have,
beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognizably wiser than
oneself.
Martin Fischer:
Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.
Mary Catherine Bateson:
Insight, I believe, refers to the depth of understanding that comes by setting
experiences, yours and mine, familiar and exotic, new and old, side by side,
learning by letting them speak to one another.
Med Yones:
To be wise analyze. Do not blame! Sympathize.
[International Institute of Management]
Mohandas K. Gandhi:
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. [India Leader, Peace
Guru]
Norman Cousins:
Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
Pierre Abelard:
The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the
question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.
Proverbs 17:28:
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth
his lips is esteemed a man of understanding. [The Bible}
Rachel Carson:
If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the
emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the
seeds must grow.
Robert Green Ingersoll:
It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to
have education without common sense.
Robert Heinlein:
But goodness alone is never enough. A hard cold wisdom is required, too, for
goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom invariably accomplishes
evil.
Robert Louis Stevenson:
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.
Sam Levenson:
It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the
opposite.
Samuel Smiles :
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.
Sophocles:
A short saying often contains much wisdom.
Sophocles:
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
Stephen Covey:
Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security,
guidance, wisdom, and power. [American Author]
Stephen Sigmund:
Learn wisdom from the ways of a seedling. A seedling which is never hardened off
through stressful situations will never become a strong productive plant.
Stephen Vincent Benét:
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
Sydney J. Harris:
An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run
doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short
run determines the long run.
Theodore Roosevelt:
Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Theodore Rubin:
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the
beginning of wisdom.
Thomas Jefferson:
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use
our power the greater it will be. [American President]
Tryon Edwards:
He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, and will never
be wiser on the morrow than he is today.
Umberto Eco:
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that
is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an
underlying truth.
Vernon Cooper:
These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom
is of the future.
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