quotations about wisdom
He who trusts in himself is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom is safe.
BIBLE
Proverbs 28:26
What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.
SRI AUROBINDO
Thoughts and Aphorisms
The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom spun too fine.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1746
Wisdom is the lost property of the believer.
MUHAMMAD
Muhammad: The Last Prophet
Wisdom is wisdom, wherever found.
G. DAVID NORDLEY
"The Fountain", Asimov's Science Fiction, June 1, 2013
If you desire to be wiser yet, think yourself not yet wise.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
King Lear
Better to be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.
AESOP
"Juno and the Peacock", Aesop's Fables
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Emile
Beware of a leader who doesn't have scars or walk with a limp. One of the characteristics of a great leader is wisdom, and the best way to get wisdom is through experience. Normally that experience includes a few failures -- that's where battle scars and limps come from.
INGAR GREV
"Here's why companies don't want to hire people over the age of 40", The Business Journals, January 26, 2016
Nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Cunning", The Essays or Counsels, Civil and Moral
The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Proverbs of Hell
A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past.
SOPHOCLES
attributed, Day's Collacon
All wisdom ends in paradox.
JEFFREY EUGENIDES
The Virgin Suicides
Wisdom is inconceivable apart from something about which it can be called into operation.
SABINE BARING-GOULD
The Origin and Development of Religious Belief: Christianity
There are few who would need advisers, if they were only accustomed to appeal to themselves in their calmest, holiest moments. If, when embarrassed with doubt as to any course of action, they would turn aside from the immediate tumult of the world, and from the vain speaking of those who "darken counsel by words without knowledge;" and would then commune with their hearts alone, at night, the heavens their silent counsellors, they would act not always in accordance with the wise men of this world, but with that wisdom which bringeth peace.
ARTHUR HELPS
Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd
Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI
The Prince
A wise man is out of the reach of fortune.
THOMAS BROWNE
Religio Medici
Contend not in wisdom with a fool, for thy sense maketh much of his conceit;
And some errors never would have thriven, had it not been for learned refutation.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy