Wisdom Quotes

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

Sophocles

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

Saint Augustine

Our experience is composed rathery of illusions that of wisdom acquired.

Joseph Roux

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

W. R. Inge

More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to utter hopelessness and despair, the other to total extinction. Let us hope we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Woody Allen

Doubt is often the beginning of wisdom.

M Scott Peck

Wisdom is better than wit, and in the long run will certainly have the laugh on her side.

Jane Austen, from a letter to her niece, November 18, 1814

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

H. L. Mencken

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

Bill Clinton, 2004 democratic convention speech

I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.

Socrates

It is the part of wisdom to keep your word and the part of folly to count on other people keeping theirs.

Richard Needham

We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.

Stephen Vincent Benet, Litany for Dictatorships, 1935

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

Marilyn vos Savant

Accuse not nature, she hath done her partDo thou but thine, and be not diffidentOf wisdom, she deserts thee not, if thouDismiss not her, when most thou needest her nigh, By attributing overmuch to thingsLess excellent, as thou thyself perceivest.

John Milton

Wisdom comes with winters.

Oscar Wildedmissions literature at Colby College.

Wisdom consists not so much in knowing what to do in the ultimate as in knowing what to do next.

Herbert Clark Hoove

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, Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish".

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

Sigmund Freud

Data is not information, Information is not knowledge, Knowledge is not understanding, Understanding is not wisdom.

Cliff Stoll & Gary Schubert

A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance. Observe how the greatest minds yield in some degree to the superstitions of their age.

Henry David Thoreau

It is the ultimate wisdom of the mountains that a man is never more a man than when he is striving for what is beyond his grasp.

James Ramsey

Silence is as full of potential wisdom and wit as the unhewn marble of a great sculpture.

Aldous Huxley

A grain of gold will gild a great surface, but not so much as a grain of wisdom. - From Live Without Principle.

Henry David Thoreau

Never hire or promote in your own image. It is foolish to replicate your strength and idiotic to replicate your weakness. 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 W. Hock, Fast Company

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Robert Frost

A country is considered the more civilized the more the wisdom and efficiency of its laws hinder a weak man from becoming too weak or a powerful one too powerful.

Primo Levi

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

Henry David Thoreau

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - And stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove - Lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove - Lid again - And that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.

Mark Twain

The motto of chivalry is also the motto of wisdom; to serve all, but love only one.

Honore De Balzac

Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, and as you sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Bible, Colossians 3: 16

These days people seek knowledge, not wisdom. Knowledge is of the past, wisdom is of the future.

Vernon Coope

It is not white hair that engenders wisdom.

Menander, Unidentified fragment

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

Woody Allen

The extreme limit of wisdom - - That is what the public calls madness.

Jean Cocteau

Wisdom is not a product of schooling, but of the life - Long attempt to acquire it.

Albert Einstein

Our wisdom comes from our experience, and our experience comes from our foolishness.

Sacha Guitry

It is the first step of wisdom to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the society in which they occur.

George Whitehead

Great wisdom is generous petty wisdom is contentious. Great speech is impassioned, small speech cantankerous.

Chuang - Tzu