Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

wisdom

A monarchy conducted with infinite wisdom and infinite benevolence is the most perfect of all possible governments.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

Always seek out the seed of triumph in every adversity.

Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them.

Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience.

I do not believe in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Man is only great when he acts from passion.

Much of the wisdom of one age, is the folly of the next.

No man is the wiser for his learning it may administer matter to work in, or objects to work upon but wit and wisdom are born with a man.

Our own physical body possesses a wisdom which we who inhabit the body lack. We give it orders which make no sense.

The constitutions of Maryland and New York are founded in higher wisdom.

The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.

The pine stays green in winter... wisdom in hardship.

The sublimity of wisdom is to do those things living, which are to be desired when dying.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations.

To light one candle to God and another to the Devil is the principle of wisdom.

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?

When an opponent comes forward, move in and greet him if he wants to pull back, send him on his way.

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values.

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

A wholesome oblivion of one's neighbours is the beginning of wisdom.

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.

All human wisdom is summed up in two words wait and hope.

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

Be happy. It's one way of being wise.

Books should to one of these fours ends conduce, for wisdom, piety, delight, or use.

Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.

For the subtlest folly proceeds from the subtlest wisdom.

Genius unrefined resembles a flash of lightning, but wisdom is like the sun.

God in His wisdom has decided that He will reward no works but His own.

He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.

Honesty is the best policy.

It is costly wisdom that is bought by experience.

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

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.

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

Life is the only real counselor wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.

Magnanimity in politics is not seldom the truest wisdom and a great empire and little minds go ill together.

Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.

Science investigates religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power religion gives man wisdom which is control.

Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life.

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

The doors of wisdom are never shut.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false the second, to know that which is true.

The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom.

The greatest wisdom is to realize one's lack of it.

The pessimist complains about the wind the optimist expects it to change the realist adjusts the sails.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

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.

The war... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.

There are three faithful friends - an old wife, an old dog, and ready money.

This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

Though sages may pour out their wisdom's treasure, there is no sterner moralist than pleasure.

To know one's self is wisdom, but not to know one's neighbors is genius.

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.

Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.

Wisdom begins at the end.

Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.

Wisdom is knowing what to do next virtue is doing it.

Wisdom is knowledge which has become a part of one's being.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

Wisdom sails with wind and time.

Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.

Wise men make more opportunities than they find.

A loving heart is the truest wisdom.

Books are the ever burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.

I am thinking of taking a fifth wife. Why not? Solomon had a thousand wives and he is a synonym for wisdom.

If we continue to develop our technology without wisdom or prudence, our servant may prove to be our executioner.

If you want to be found stand where the seeker seeks.

In action a great heart is the chief qualification. In work, a great head.

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

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.

It is the neglect of timely repair that makes rebuilding necessary.

Knowledge shrinks as wisdom grows.

Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom.

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

Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of life amount not to wisdom, but to scar tissue and callus.

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

The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.

The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself.

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

Who in their infinite wisdom decreed that Little League uniforms be white? Certainly not a mother.

Wisdom is a sacred communion.

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

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

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

Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.

The day of fortune is like a harvest day, We must be busy when the corn is ripe.

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.

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

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

Climb the mountains and get their good tidings.

Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.

Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

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.

I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship.

I prefer the folly of enthusiasm to the indifference of wisdom.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

In every walk with nature one receives far more than he seeks.

Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.

Kindness is wisdom.

Learning sleeps and snores in libraries, but wisdom is everywhere, wide awake, on tiptoe.

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

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.

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

The wheel that squeaks the loudest is the one that gets the grease.

This fear of the Lord is indeed the beginning of wisdom. This consciousness of sin is the straight pathway to heaven.

To think ill of mankind and not wish ill to them, is perhaps the highest wisdom and virtue.

We have heeded no wisdom offering guidance.

Wisdom has never made a bigot, but learning has.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

Wisdom is keeping a sense of fallibility of all our views and opinions.

Wisdom is oftentimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Gray hairs are signs of wisdom if you hold your tongue, speak and they are but hairs, as in the young.

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.

It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important.

It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.

Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them.

Public opinion is no more than this: what people think that other people think.

The difference between chirping out of turn and a faux pas depends on what kind of a bar you're in.

The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

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

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

Theology in general seems to me a substitution of human ingenuity for divine wisdom.

Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it.

We are to seek wisdom and understanding only in the length of days.

We can't command our love, but we can our actions.

When written in Chinese, the word 'crisis' is composed of two characters. One represents danger and the other represents opportunity.

Wisdom and deep intelligence require an honest appreciation of mystery.

Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.

Wisdom is that apprehension of heavenly things to which the spirit rises through love.

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

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

Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.

Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor, to the persons who possess it.

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.

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

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.

There is no knowledge, no light, no wisdom that you are in possession of, but what you have received it from some source.

We should not judge people by their peak of excellence but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.

Winners never quit and quitters never win.

Winning is not everything, but wanting to win is.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

After all my possessions had been burned, God gave me the wisdom to return to Jerusalem.

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Beware of false knowledge it is more dangerous than ignorance.

Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.

Experience is not what happens to you it's what you do with what happens to you.

Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one's aim.

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

The clouds may drop down titles and estates, and wealth may seek us, but wisdom must be sought.

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

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.

The weak have remedies, the wise have joys superior wisdom is superior bliss.

We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice.

We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.

We don't receive wisdom we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

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

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground, but a kind word is never thrown away.

All human wisdom works and has worries and grief as reward.

As you walk down the fairway of life you must smell the roses, for you only get to play one round.

I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.

In order to have wisdom we must have ignorance.

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

Teach you children poetry it opens the mind, lends grace to wisdom and makes the heroic virtues hereditary.

The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.

To know how to grow old is the master work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.

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.

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

Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.

Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation.

Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.

Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.

Few people have the wisdom to prefer the criticism that would do them good, to the praise that deceives them.

However glorious an action in itself, it ought not to pass for great if it be not the effect of wisdom and intention.

It is great folly to wish to be wise all alone.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.

It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

Knowledge is the consequence of time, and multitude of days are fittest to teach wisdom.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Purity engenders Wisdom, Passion avarice, and Ignorance folly, infatuation and darkness.

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

To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly.

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.

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?

Women always excel men in that sort of wisdom which comes from experience. To be a woman is in itself a terrible experience.

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

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

Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ears are stopped with wisdom.

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.

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.

It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.

Kisses are a better fate than wisdom.

Man's wisdom is his best friend folly his worst enemy.

Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

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

To keep your secret is wisdom to expect others to keep it is folly.

We do not sit as a superlegislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.

What is man's ultimate direction in life? It is to look for love, truth, virtue, and beauty.

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate.

In the frank expression of conflicting opinions lies the greatest promise of wisdom in governmental action.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.

More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

Science gives us knowledge, but only philosophy can give us wisdom.

Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.

The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.

They whom truth and wisdom lead, can gather honey from a weed.

They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.

Unhappy is that Grandeur which makes us too great to be good and that Wit which sets us at a distance from true Wisdom.

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.

Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

You can't sweep other people off their feet, if you can't be swept off your own.