quotations about wisdom
Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.
BERTOLT BRECHT
The Caucasian Chalk Circle
True wisdom is knowing what you don't know.
CONFUCIUS
Sayings of Confucius
Fools talk, cowards are silent, wise men listen.
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON
The Shadow of the Wind
You know the difference between knowledge and wisdom? Knowledge is knowing tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing you don't put tomato in a fruit salad.
GENE KESSELMAN
"The secrets of a 95-year-old man", New Jersey, February 5, 2016
Wisdom is ever fresh; other things grow stale, but this is the evergreen flower of nature.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Wise men are instructed by reason; men of less understanding, by experience; the most ignorant, by necessity; and beasts, by nature.
CICERO
attributed, Day's Collacon
Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.
DOUG LARSON
attributed, Words from the Wise
There is no man ... however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man -- so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise -- unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded.
MARCEL PROUST
Within a Budding Grove
There are many gates to the house of wisdom.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
The Literary Remains: Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit
Let not wisdom be an occasional visitor--let it ever dwell with thee.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter:
To what shall their rarity be likened? What prices shall count their worth?
Perfect, and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches,
No lovely thing on earth can picture their fair beauty.
They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
Wisdom grows in quiet places.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the withered fields where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Vala
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
BRUCE LEE
Striking Thoughts: Bruce Lee's Wisdom for Daily Living
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
AESCHYLUS
Prometheus Bound
The cleverest of all, in my opinion, is the man who calls himself a fool at least once a month.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Bobok
To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mortals and Others
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
WILLIAM COWPER
The Task