Wisdom Quotes
530 Quotes Found
Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world.
Archimedes
The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.
William Arthur Ward
Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is God's gift, that's why we call it the present.
Joan Rivers
The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark.
Michelangelo
A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
Saint Basil
We are what our thoughts have made us; so take care about what you think. Words are secondary. Thoughts live; they travel far.
Swami Vivekananda
Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody's watching.
Satchel Paige
Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.
Judy Garland
If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
Nelson Mandela
My father said there were two kinds of people in the world: givers and takers. The takers may eat better, but the givers sleep better.
Marlo Thomas
When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.
John F. Kennedy
It is better to risk starving to death then surrender. If you give up on your dreams, what's left?
Jim Carrey
The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.
Muriel Strode
We respect our elders. There is wisdom that comes from experience, and I am not going to stop learning from wise counsel.
Marcia Fudge
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.
Khalil Gibran
Ignorant men raise questions that wise men answered a thousand years ago.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
George Bernard Shaw
The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
Jean Paul
Eventually, we reach the point where we start to realize that we are not going to find peace, contentment, happiness, strength, fearlessness - all of the things that in our heart of hearts we wish we had - outside of us.
Guy Finley
Bitcoin is a swarm of cyber hornets serving the goddess of wisdom, feeding on the fire of truth, exponentially growing ever smarter, faster, and stronger behind a wall of encrypted energy.
Michael J. Saylor
The price of wisdom is innocence. So, I have definitely become wiser but sadly a little less innocent.
Mahira Khan
The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are.
John Burroughs
I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime. -Elisabeth Kubler
Ross
To wear your heart on your sleeve isn't a very good plan; you should wear it inside, where it functions best.
Margaret Thatcher
Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.
Josh Billings
Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.
Johannes Tauler
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
John Wooden
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
John C. Maxwell
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
Audrey Hepburn
It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
Walter Lippmann
The tradition is a fence around the law; tithes are a fence around riches; vows are a fence around abstinence; a fence around wisdom is silence.
Akiva ben Joseph
That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
We learn from each other. We learn from others' mistakes, from their experience, their wisdom. It makes it easier for us to come to better decisions in our own lives.
Adrian Grenier
We humans have lost the wisdom of genuinely resting and relaxing. We worry too much. We don't allow our bodies to heal, and we don't allow our minds and hearts to heal.
Thich Nhat Hanh
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
T. S. Eliot
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
Friedrich Nietzsche
The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.
John Updike
Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.
Morihei Ueshiba
There is a universal, intelligent, life force that exists within everyone and everything. It resides within each one of us as a deep wisdom, an inner knowing. We can access this wonderful source of knowledge and wisdom through our intuition, an inner sense that tells us what feels right and true for us at any given moment.
Shakti Gawain
The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
Khalil Gibran
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts 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.
Calvin Coolidge
If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others; for the knowledge of truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.
Maimonides
There is a particular set of values commonly associated with being professional. Experience, expertise, trustworthiness, wisdom, and good judgement are all attributes aspired to by senior professional people, be they doctors, engineers, lawyers, civil servants, or the clergy.
Mark Walport
Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom.
Paul Greengrass
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.
Lin Yutang
You must learn day by day, year by year to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.
Ethel Barrymore
A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.
Khalil Gibran
Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.
Confucius
In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep to the simple. In conflict, be fair and generous. In governing, don't try to control. In work, do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present.
Lao Tzu
Even when you have doubts, take that step. Take chances. Mistakes are never a failure - they can be turned into wisdom.
Cat Cora
Many of us spend half of our time wishing for things we could have if we didn't spend half our time wishing.
Alexander Woollcott
The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching.
Joseph Smith, Jr.
Wise kings generally have wise counselors; and he must be a wise man himself who is capable of distinguishing one.
Diogenes
An owl is traditionally a symbol of wisdom, so we are neither doves nor hawks but owls, and we are vigilant when others are resting.
Urjit Patel
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.
Peter Abelard
People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.
J. Michael Straczynski
Linux is a complex example of the wisdom of crowds. It's a good example in the sense that it shows you can set people to work in a decentralized way - that is, without anyone really directing their efforts in a particular direction - and still trust that they're going to come up with good answers.
James Surowiecki
When you're used to being prepared to reject conventional wisdom, it leaves you open to learn more.
Mayim Bialik
Don't follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise.
Joan Rivers
God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Reinhold Niebuhr
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
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.
Samuel Smiles
It is like the seed put in the soil - the more one sows, the greater the harvest.
Orison Swett Marden
When a thing is done, it's done. Don't look back. Look forward to your next objective.
George C. Marshall
Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Khalil Gibran
Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.
Henry Ward Beecher
He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become at sixty as wise as he thought himself at twenty.
Mary Wilson Little
It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.
Desiderius Erasmus
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.
Thomas Babington Macaulay
There is as much wisdom in listening as there is in speaking - and that goes for all relationships, not just romantic ones.
Daniel Dae Kim
Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don't pray when it rains if you don't pray when the sun shines.
Richard M. Nixon
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.
Doug Larson
If you set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing.
Margaret Thatcher
As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.
Ben Hogan
You are a product of your environment. So choose the environment that will best develop you toward your objective. Analyze your life in terms of its environment. Are the things around you helping you toward success - or are they holding you back?
W. Clement Stone
All of us, at certain moments of our lives, need to take advice and to receive help from other people.
Alexis Carrel
The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom, to know when it ought to be resisted, and when it be obeyed.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.
Epicurus
Wisdom comes from within. Knowledge is acquired and can sometimes put a screen on your wisdom.
A. R. Rahman
Only a well-rounded intellect, a spirit nourished in the eternal sources of intelligence and culture, of justice and wisdom, is a safeguard against both indifference and skepticism.
Ameen Rihani
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
A heart well prepared for adversity in bad times hopes, and in good times fears for a change in fortune.
Horace
If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.
Omar N. Bradley
You must accept responsibility for your actions, but not the credit for your achievements.
Denis Waitley
Spending two years on my uncle's ranch in Montana as a young man gave me the wisdom and the thrust to do westerns.
Robert Duvall
The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
Benjamin Franklin
The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
Rollo May
America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.
Parker Palmer
I am a poor student sitting at the feet of giants, yearning for their wisdom and begging for lessons that might one day make me a complete artist, so that if all goes well, I may one day sit beside them.
Rod Taylor
Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.
Benjamin Franklin
I acknowledge the privilege of being alive in a human body at this moment, endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts, and the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.
Alex Grey
The more I draw and write, the more I realise that accidents are a necessary part of any creative act, much more so than logic or wisdom. Sometimes a mistake is the only way of arriving at an original concept, and the history of successful inventions is full of mishaps, serendipity and unintended results.
Shaun Tan
There's a beauty to wisdom and experience that cannot be faked. It's impossible to be mature without having lived.
Amy Grant
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it.
Rabindranath Tagore
It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.
William Inge
Kindness is more important than wisdom, and the recognition of this is the beginning of wisdom.
Theodore Isaac Rubin
Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two. A constant coming and going: wisdom lies in the momentary.
Octavio Paz
Every day, every birthday candle I blow out, every penny I throw over my shoulder in a wishing well, every time my daughter says, 'Let's make a wish on a star,' there's one thing I wish for: wisdom.
Rene Russo
Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.
Karl Kraus
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius
A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation.
Moliere
Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.
Lord Byron
You have to find out what's right for you, so it's trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself.
Teri Garr
The three great essentials to achieve anything worth while are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.
Thomas A. Edison
Through mutual understanding, sincerity and goodwill, and with great wisdom and broad views, the leaders on both sides should jointly initiate new opportunities for peace, stability, cooperation and mutual benefit. -Chen Shui
bian
Peace is a fragile thing. It takes courage to secure it. It takes wisdom to maintain it.
Jenny Shipley
The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.
Reinhold Niebuhr
If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.
Lord Salisbury
I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
Hippolyte Taine
The way a woman carries herself and the way she dresses ought to promote the following types of words: modesty, discretion, wisdom, beauty, elegance and refinement, but not sensuality, luxury, extravagance.
Paul Washer
Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life's search for love and wisdom.
Rumi
What is man's ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty.
Shinichi Suzuki
The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you're in.
Wilson Mizner
People usually compare the computer to the head of the human being. I would say that hardware is the bone of the head, the skull. The semiconductor is the brain within the head. The software is the wisdom. And data is the knowledge.
Masayoshi Son
Our shared values define us more than our differences. And acknowledging those shared values can see us through our challenges today if we have the wisdom to trust in them again.
John McCain
Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to.
Greg Anderson
Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.
Henry Van Dyke
The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.
Benjamin Disraeli
The chief condition on which, life, health and vigor depend on, is action. It is by action that an organism develops its faculties, increases its energy, and attains the fulfillment of its destiny.
Colin Powell
We need to hear stories from older women. There's a wealth of wisdom and real resilience there, but they're silenced.
Hannah Gadsby
Wisdom cannot come by railroad or automobile or aeroplane, or be hurried up by telegraph or telephone.
John Burroughs
What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that's how I approached the part.
Christopher Reeve
Teach your children poetry; it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.
Walter Scott
Each of us has been put on earth with the ability to do something well. We cheat ourselves and the world if we don't use that ability as best we can.
George Allen, Sr.
The stupidity of people comes from having an answer for everything. The wisdom of the novel comes from having a question for everything.
Milan Kundera
This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.
Thomas Dekker
I think it's nice to age gracefully. OK, you lose the youth, a certain stamina and dewy glow, but what you gain on the inside as a human being is wonderful: the wisdom, the acceptance and the peace of mind. It's a fair exchange.
Cherie Lunghi
True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.
Akhenaton
Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.
Elbert Hubbard
One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.
Eleanor Roosevelt
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Lao Tzu
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
Aeschylus
God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Reinhold Niebuhr
After many years of great mercy, after tasting of the powers of the world to come, we still are so weak, so foolish; but, oh! when we get away from self to God, there all is truth and purity and holiness, and our heart finds peace, wisdom, completeness, delight, joy, victory.
Charles Spurgeon
If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.
Antonin Scalia
Wisdom is nothing but a preparation of the soul, a capacity, a secret art of thinking, feeling and breathing thoughts of unity at every moment of life.
Hermann Hesse
Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
Sydney J. Harris
The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment; it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone.
Orison Swett Marden
Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one's aim.
John D. Rockefeller
Nothing can be better calculated to advance our interests and character than the establishment of a liberal and disinterested policy, enlightened by patriotism and guided by wisdom.
Sam Houston
Influential people are never satisfied with the status quo. They're the ones who constantly ask, 'What if?' and 'Why not?' They're not afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, and they don't disrupt things for the sake of being disruptive; they do it to make things better.
Travis Bradberry
Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.
Felix Frankfurter
It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.
Logan Pearsall Smith
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
E. O. Wilson
The arts, quite simply, nourish the soul. They sustain, comfort, inspire. There is nothing like that exquisite moment when you first discover the beauty of connecting with others in celebration of larger ideals and shared wisdom.
Gordon Gee
Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
The United Nations' founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America's consent, the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.
Vladimir Putin
What has history said of eminence without honor, wealth without wisdom, power and possessions without principle? The answer is reiterated in the overthrow of the mightiest empires of ancient times. Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome! The four successive, universal powers of the past. What and where are they?
Orson F. Whitney
But what is liberty without wisdom, and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint.
Edmund Burke
Radical common sense is the wisdom gleaned from the past that recognizes the perishable opportunities of the moment. It is the willingness to admit error and the refusal to be deterred by failure.
Marilyn Ferguson
My advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.
Thornton Wilder
It is while you are patiently toiling at the little tasks of life that the meaning and shape of the great whole of life dawn on you.
Phillips Brooks
For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.
Michael Caine
Being a survivor doesn't mean being strong - it's telling people when you need a meal or a ride, company, whatever. It's paying attention to heart wisdom, feelings, not living a role, but having a unique, authentic life, having something to contribute, finding time to love and laugh. All these things are qualities of survivors.
Bernie Siegel
Sometimes I am happy and sometimes not. I am, after all, a human being, you know. And I am glad that we are sometimes happy and sometimes not. You get your wisdom working by having different emotions.
Yoko Ono
No party has a monopoly on wisdom. No democracy works without compromise. But when Governor Romney and his allies in Congress tell us we can somehow lower our deficit by spending trillions more on new tax breaks for the wealthy - well, you do the math. I refuse to go along with that. And as long as I'm President, I never will.
Barack Obama
For the Holy Ghost blesses us with optimism and wisdom at times of challenge that we simply cannot muster on our own.
Sheri L. Dew
A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas Paine
I have devoted my life to uncertainty. Certainty is the death of wisdom, thought, creativity.
Shekhar Kapur
'Star Trek' was an attempt to say humanity will reach maturity and wisdom on the day that it begins not just to tolerate but take a special delight in differences in ideas and differences in lifeforms.
Gene Roddenberry
Outside of the cross of Jesus Christ, there is no hope in this world. That cross and resurrection at the core of the Gospel is the only hope for humanity. Wherever you go, ask God for wisdom on how to get that Gospel in, even in the toughest situations of life.
Ravi Zacharias
Never give up, which is the lesson I learned from boxing. As soon as you learn to never give up, you have to learn the power and wisdom of unconditional surrender, and that one doesn't cancel out the other; they just exist as contradictions. The wisdom of it comes as you get older.
Kris Kristofferson
Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom.
Clifford Stoll
A cardinal rule in budgeting and saving is to pay yourself first. Once your paycheck hits your account, wisdom has it that you should move some amount to savings even before you pay the bills.
John Rampton
Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be thankful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.
Harvey Mackay
Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.
Buddha
When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.
Sara Teasdale
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
Ansel Adams
Why would anyone walk through life satisfied with the light from the candle of their own understanding when, by reaching out to our Heavenly Father, they could experience the bright sun of spiritual knowledge that would expand their minds with wisdom and fill their souls with joy?
Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.
Khalil Gibran
But life is long. And it is the long run that balances the short flare of interest and passion.
Sylvia Plath
I think that music opens portals and doorways into unknown sectors that it takes courage to leap into. I always think that there's a potential that we all have, and we can emerge, rise up to this potential, when necessary. We have to be fearless, courageous, and draw upon wisdom that we think we don't have.
Wayne Shorter
If people can't acknowledge the wisdom of indigenous cultures, then that's their loss.
Jay Griffiths
It is a common experience that a problem difficult at night is resolved in the morning after the committee of sleep has worked on it.
John Steinbeck
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
Isaac Asimov
Clearly older women and especially older women who have led an active life or elder women who successfully maneuver through their own family life have so much to teach us about sharing, patience, and wisdom.
Alice Walker
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.
Henry Ward Beecher
Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.
John Cheever
All the great evils which men cause to each other because of certain intentions, desires, opinions, or religious principles, are likewise due to non-existence, because they originate in ignorance, which is absence of wisdom.
Maimonides
In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what's behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand.
Trent Reznor
No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, and the wisdom of cookbook writers.
Laurie Colwin
Honesty is the rarest wealth anyone can possess, and yet all the honesty in the world ain't lawful tender for a loaf of bread.
Josh Billings
To make no mistakes is not in the power of man; but from their errors and mistakes the wise and good learn wisdom for the future.
Plutarch
Hurricane Katrina overwhelmed levees and exploded the conventional wisdom about a shared American prosperity, exposing a group of people so poor they didn't have $50 for a bus ticket out of town. If we want to learn something from this disaster, the lesson ought to be: America's poor deserve better than this.
Michael Eric Dyson
To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not.
Akhenaton
It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.
Arthur Conan Doyle
Hatred is corrosive of a person's wisdom and conscience; the mentality of enmity can poison a nation's spirit, instigate brutal life and death struggles, destroy a society's tolerance and humanity, and block a nation's progress to freedom and democracy.
Liu Xiaobo
Because you are women, people will force their thinking on you, their boundaries on you. They will tell you how to dress, how to behave, who you can meet and where you can go. Don't live in the shadows of people's judgement. Make your own choices in the light of your own wisdom.
Amitabh Bachchan
Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.
Charles Spurgeon
A monarchy conducted with infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence is the most perfect of all possible governments.
Ezra Stiles
The Universal Zulu Nation stands to acknowledge wisdom, understanding, freedom, justice, and equality, peace, unity, love, and having fun, work, overcoming the negative through the positive, science, mathematics, faith, facts, and the wonders of God, whether we call him Allah, Jehovah, Yahweh, or Jah.
Afrika Bambaataa
No one has a monopoly on truth, and science continues to advance. Yesterday's heresies may be tomorrow's conventional wisdom.
Dean Ornish
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.
William Tecumseh Sherman
When an opponent comes forward, move in and greet him; if he wants to pull back, send him on his way.
Morihei Ueshiba
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.
Edith Wharton
Now, if you notice how the swan, putting its neck down into the deep water, brings up food for itself from below, then you will discover the wisdom of the Creator, in that He gave it a neck longer than its feet for this reason, that it might, as if lowering a sort of fishing line, procure the food hidden in the deep water.
Saint Basil
It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better.
Ella Maillart
Most people see what they expect to see, what they want to see, what they've been told to see, what conventional wisdom tells them to see - not what is right in front of them in its pristine condition.
Vincent Bugliosi
Knowledge is going to make you stronger. Knowledge is going to let you control your life. Knowledge is going to give you the wisdom to teach their children. Knowledge is the thing that makes you smile in the face of disaster.
Avery Brooks
Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.
Anne Bradstreet
If we are not given the chance to forget, we are also not given the chance to recover our memories, to alter them with time, perspective, and wisdom. Forgetting, we can be ourselves beyond what the past has told us we are; we can evolve. That is the possibility we want from the future.
Caterina Fake
Don't ask for a million dollars. Ask for the stuff that'll get you a million dollars - your health, your brain, your sanity, wisdom. Prepare me for when I do get that million. Make sure I don't go crazy, make sure I help my family.
Future
We can be knowledgable with other men's knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.
Michel de Montaigne
In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.
Janet Jackson
God has already done everything He's going to do. The ball is now in your court. If you want success, if you want wisdom, if you want to be prosperous and healthy, you're going to have to do more than meditate and believe; you must boldly declare words of faith and victory over yourself and your family.
Joel Osteen
I don't have the strength or wisdom to get through a single day without guidance and grace from God.
Tony Dungy
Through consciousness, our minds have the power to change our planet and ourselves. It is time we heed the wisdom of the ancient indigenous people and channel our consciousness and spirit to tend the garden and not destroy it.
Bruce Lipton
Sometimes you surprise yourself with what you can handle, and if you come out the other end with some wisdom, then it's not such a bad thing.
Boy George
Authority is supposedly grounded in wisdom, but I could see from a very early age that authority was only a system of control. And it didn't have any inherent wisdom. I quickly realized that you either became a power or you were crushed.
Joe Strummer
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.
Buddha
True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.
Socrates
Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.
Colin Powell
Earthly wisdom is doing what comes naturally. Godly wisdom is doing what the Holy Spirit compels us to do.
Charles Stanley
The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love, for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven, such as peace, intelligence, wisdom and happiness.
Emanuel Swedenborg
The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.
Honore de Balzac
Information is not knowledge, and knowledge is not wisdom. Reading - even browsing - an old book can yield sustenance denied by a database search. Patience is a virtue, gluttony a sin.
James Gleick
The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.
Robert Frost
Know what's important and what isn't. Have the wisdom to know the right thing to do, the integrity to do it, the character to stand up to those who don't, and the courage to stop those who won't.
Mark Goulston
Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say 'no.' But saying 'yes' begins things. Saying 'yes' is how things grow.
Stephen Colbert
The philosophy of life is this: Life is not a struggle, not a tension... Life is bliss. It is eternal wisdom, eternal existence.
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps.
Confucius
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.
Mahatma Gandhi
Community organizing is all about building grassroots support. It's about identifying the people around you with whom you can create a common, passionate cause. And it's about ignoring the conventional wisdom of company politics and instead playing the game by very different rules.
Tom Peters
I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.
Brigitte Bardot
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
Plato
If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.
Holly Near
When you get older, you learn certain life lessons. You apply that wisdom, and suddenly you say, 'Hey, I've got a new lease on this thing. So let's go.'
Robert Redford
If you call failures experiments, you can put them in your resume and claim them as achievements.
Mason Cooley
This is what I learned: that everybody is talented, original and has something important to say.
Brenda Ueland
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
Hermann Hesse
It's now our responsibility to prove to ourselves, to other nations, and especially to our children and our grandchildren, that politics is full of fun; politics has some wisdom. Politics is freedom.
Joko Widodo
Wisdom is the abstract of the past, but beauty is the promise of the future.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.
Michael Jordan
It is essential to employ, trust, and reward those whose perspective, ability, and judgment are radically different from yours. It is also rare, for it requires uncommon humility, tolerance, and wisdom.
Dee Hock
Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.
Epicurus
The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong, if we do not feel right.
William Hazlitt
You can only learn so much from books. You can only learn so much from education. Ultimately, it is the wisdom of God that will carry you through in the toughest situations of life.
Ravi Zacharias
The war... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.
Robert E. Lee
Imagination allows us to escape the predictable. It enables us to reply to the common wisdom that we cannot soar by saying, 'Just watch!'
Bill Bradley