concept

wisdom Quotes

100+ of the best book quotes about wisdom
01
Share
“Lust and dull slumber and the lazy hours Have well nigh banished virtue from mankind. Hence have man’s nature and his treacherous mind Left their free course, enmeshed in sin’s soft bowers. The very light of heaven hath lost its powers Mid fading ways our loftiest dreams to find; Men jeer at him whose footsteps are inclined Where Helicon from dewy fountains showers. Who seeks the laurel? who the myrtle twines? ‘Wisdom, thou goest a beggar and unclad,’ So scoffs the crowd, intent on worthless gain. Few are the hearts that prize the poet’s lines: Yet, friend, the more I hail thy spirit glad! Let not the glory of thy purpose wane!”
Francesco Petrarca
author
Fifteen Sonnets of Petrarch
book
dreams
wisdom
lust
love sonnets
concepts
02
Share
“We often made fun of them and played jokes on them, but in our hearts we trusted them. The idea of authority, which they represented, was associated in our minds with a greater insight and a more humane wisdom. But the first death we saw shattered this belief. We had to recognize that our generation was more to be trusted than theirs. They surpassed us only in phrases and cleverness. The first bombardment showed us our mistake, and under it the world as they had taught it to us broke in pieces.”
Paul Bäumer
character
death
wisdom
trust
authority
concepts
03
Share
“He hopes that the hand which stokes his forehead will never stop – will never die. He hopes that there will never come a time when the old folks won’t be sitting around the living room, talking about where they’ve come from, and what they’ve seen, and what’s happened to them and their kinfolk.”
04
Share
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.”
05
Share
“There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.”
06
Share
“May you recognize in your life the presence, power, and light of your soul. May you realize that you are never alone, that your soul in its brightness and belonging connects you intimately with the rhythm of the universe. May you have respect for your own individuality and difference. ”
07
Share
“The secret and the sacred are sisters. When the secret is not respected, the sacred vanishes. Consequently, reflection should not shine too severe or aggressive a light on the world of the soul.”
08
Share
“Instead of being enfeebled by age, the Elder had been empowered by it; He could outfly any gull in the Flock, and he had learned skills that the others were only gradually coming to know.”
09
Share
“When you send that love out from the bountifulness of your own love, it reaches other people. This love is the deepest power of prayer.”
10
Share
“A person should always offer a prayer of graciousness for the love that has awakened in them. When you feel love for your beloved and the beloved’s love for you, now and again you should offer the warmth of your love as a blessing for those who are damaged and unloved.”
11
Share
“Love opens the door of ancient recognition. You enter. You come home to each other at last. As Euripides said, ‘Two friends, one soul.‘”
12
Share
“All through your life your soul takes care of you...your soul is alive and awakened, gathering, sheltering and guiding your ways and days in the world. In effect, your soul is your secret shelter.”
13
Share
“Your soul knows the geography of your destiny.”
14
Share
“The heart of the matter: You should never belong fully to something that is outside yourself. It is very important to find a balance in your belonging.”
15
Share
“May you realize that the shape of your soul is unique, that you have a special destiny here, that behind the facade of your life there is something beautiful, good, and eternal happening. May you learn to see yourself with the same delight, pride, and expectation with which God sees you in every moment.”
16
Share
“Your soul is the priestess of memory, selecting, sifting, and ultimately gathering your vanishing days toward presence.”
17
Share
“...to gaze into the face of another is to gaze into the depth and entirety of his life.”
18
Share
“Sometimes you gwyne to git hurt, en sometimes you gwyne to git sick; but every time you’s gwyne to git well agin.”
19
Share
“The way you look at things is the most powerful force in shaping your life.”
20
Share
“I was seldom able to see an opportunity until it had ceased to be one.”
21
Share
“Real friendship or love is not manufactured or achieved by an act of will or intention. Friendship is always an act of recognition.”
22
Share
“A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you.”
23
Share
“Keep something beautiful in your heart to survive difficult times and enjoy good times.”
24
Share
“Our Creed does not command us to be free. It commands us to be wise.”
25
Share
“A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”
26
Share
“The mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience.”
27
Share
“For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.”
28
Share
“If he is old enough to ask the question he is old enough to receive true answers. I am not putting the thoughts into his head, but helping him unfold those already there. These children are wiser than we are...”
29
Share
“The cast is so soft and slow that it can be followed like an ash settling from a fireplace chimney. One of life’s quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only a floating ash.”
30
Share
“Angry people are not always wise.”
31
Share
“For the record, he who does fear death also dies only once, but whatever.”
32
Share
“God only is wise; and by his answer he intends to show that the wisdom of men is worth little or nothing; he is not speaking of Socrates, he is only using my name by way of illustration, as if he said, He, O men, is the wisest, who, like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing.”
Plato
author
God
person
Socrates
character
wisdom
value
truth
concepts
33
Share
“The virtuous rest in virtue; the wise desire virtue.”
Confucius
author
wisdom
rest
virtue
concepts
34
Share
“For the fear of death is indeed the pretence of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretence of knowing the unknown; and no one knows whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good.”
Plato
author
Socrates
character
wisdom
evil
good
concepts
35
Share
“Once a King in Narnia, always a King in Narnia.”
36
Share
“I go about the world, obedient to the god, and search and make enquiry into the wisdom of any one, whether citizen or stranger, who appears to be wise; and if he is not wise, then in vindication of the oracle I show him that he is not wise; and my occupation quite absorbs me, and I have no time to give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of my devotion to the god.”
Plato
author
Socrates
character
37
Share
“Then I knew that not by wisdom do poets write poetry, but by a sort of genius and inspiration; they are like diviners or soothsayers who also say many fine things, but do not understand the meaning of them.”
Plato
author
Socrates
character
wisdom
poetry
poets
concepts
38
Share
“I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.”
Plato
author
Socrates
character
39
Share
“The main problem with this great obsession for saving time is very simple: you can’t save time. You can only spend it. But you can spend it wisely or foolishly.”
40
Share
“Well, God give them wisdom that have it. And those that are fools, let them use their talents.”
41
Share
“Wisdom, Happiness, and Courage are not waiting somewhere out beyond sight at the end of a straight line; they’re part of a continuous cycle that begins right here. They’re not only the ending, but the beginning as well.”
42
Share
“A clever mind is not a heart. Knowledge doesn’t really care, wisdom does.”
43
Share
“As a kid, you learn to measure long before you understand the size or value of anything. Eventually, if you’re lucky, you learn that you’ve been measuring all wrong.”
44
Share
“I did not know that he had put into my hands the secret that would open far darker rooms than this- places where there was not, on a human level, anything to love at all.”
45
Share
“The Martians—dead! ... slain, after all man’s devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.”
46
Share
“The wise warrior avoids the battle.”
Sun Tzu
author
war
wisdom
concepts
47
Share
He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.
48
Share
“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.”
49
Share
“Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.”
50
Share
“Just like there’s a time that a smart person know enough is enough, there’s a time when you know you’ve got to fight”
51
Share
“There comes a time when you’re losing a fight that it just doesn’t make sense to keep on fighting. It’s not that you’re being a quitter, it’s just that you’ve got the sense to know when enough is enough.”
52
Share
“Wash yourself of yourself.”
53
Share
“It’s funny how ideas are, in a lot of ways they’re just like seeds. Both of them start real, real small and then woop, zoop, sloop…before you can say Jack Robinson they’ve gone and grown a lot bigger than you ever thought they could.”
54
Share
“We are old now, yet we were young this morning, when we carried our glass box through the streets of the City to the Home of the Scholars.”
55
Share
“By living a life based on wisdom and truth, one can discover the divinity of the soul, its union to the universe, the supreme peace and contentment which comes from satisfying the inner drive for self discovery.”
56
Share
“No single one can possess greater wisdom than the many Scholars who are elected by all men for their wisdom. Yet we can. We do.”
57
Share
“Do not assess a man who has nothing, and thus falsify your pen.”
58
Share
“Man is separated into soul and body, and only when the two sides of his senses agree together, does utterance of its thought conceived by mind take place.”
59
Share
“Those who put themselves in His hands will become perfect, as He is perfect- perfect in love, wisdom, joy, beauty, health, and immortality. The change will not be completed in this life, for death is an important part of the treatment. How far the change will have gone before death in any particular Christian is uncertain.”
60
Share
“Men and their cubs are very wise. He may be a help in time.”
61
Share
“Conceal your heart, control your mouth. Beware of releasing the restraints in you; Listen if you want to endure in the mouth of the hearers. Speak after you have mastered the craft.”
62
Share
“The study of the wisdom teachings should be a continuous process in which the teachings become the predominant factor of life rather than the useless and oftentimes negative and illusory thoughts of those who are ignorant of spiritual truths.”
63
Share
“The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far. But a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.”
64
Share
“A wise man heeds all matters great or small.”
65
Share
“I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise.”
66
Share
“Notice I didn’t specify what kind of doom, so no matter what happens, I predicted it. How very wise of me.”
67
Share
“Alas, alas, what misery to be wise When wisdom profits nothing!”
68
Share
“All the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity.”
69
Share
“Wise? No, I’ve just learned how to think.”
70
Share
“The answer is logic. Or, to put it another way, the ability to reason analytically. Applied properly, it can overcome any lack of wisdom, which one only gains through age and experience.”
71
Share
“Everywhere one may hear of ravenous dogs and wolves, and cruel men-eaters, but it is not so easy to find states that are well and wisely governed.”
72
Share
“For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him, That he alone can speak or think aright, Such oracles are empty breath when tried.”
Sophocles
author
Haemon
character
73
Share
“Ruler of Athens, Lord and Governor, And in his time so great a conqueror There was none mightier beneath the sun. And many a rich country he had won, What with his wisdom and his troops of horse.”
74
Share
“I’ve lived long enough to know I’m not one-hundred-percent anything.”
75
Share
“The old Once-ler still lives here. Ask him. He knows.”
76
Share
“You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge.”
77
Share
‘We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.’
78
Share
“We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.”
79
Share
“Our minds thus grow in spots; and like grease spots, the spots spread. But we let them spread as little as possible: we keep unaltered as much of our old knowledge, as many of our old prejudices and beliefs, as we can.”
80
Share
“It’s fear that makes us lose our conscience. It’s also what transforms us into cowards.”
81
Share
“Thou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.”
82
Share
“There’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.”
83
Share
“How am I supposed to know what’s real and what’s not? It feels like I’m the only one who doesn’t know the difference.”
84
Share
“It’s funny how much of childhood is about proximity.”
85
Share
“My old thoughts about the silt of a billion years covering all this and all cities and generations eventually is just a dumb old thought, ‘Only a silly sober fool could think it, imagine gloating over such nonsense’ (because in one sense the drinker learns wisdom, in the words of Goethe or Blake or whichever it was “The pathway to wisdom lies through excess’) – But in this condition you can only say ‘Wisdom is just another way to make people sick.‘”
86
Share
You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid—and I know they are—yet I won’t be wiser?
87
Share
“Those friends who knew, laughed to scorn the idea that Marguerite St. Just had married a fool for the sake of the worldly advantages with which he might endow her. They knew, as a matter of fact, that Marguerite St. Just cared nothing about money, and still less about a title.”
88
Share
“Forgive me…for everything…I have done…A─ a wiser father…may have done differently. I am not…wise.”
89
Share
“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.”
90
Share
“Age is foolish and forgetful when it underestimates youth.”
91
Share
“I could tell that Mrs. Winterbottom was trying to rise above some awful sadness she was feeling, but Prudence couldn’t see that. Prudence had her own agenda, just as I had had my own agenda that day my mother wanted me to walk with her. I couldn’t see my mother’s sadness.”
92
Share
“Every twenty-four God has a fresh new supply of grace, of favor, of wisdom, of forgiveness.”
93
Share
“Life is wasted if we do not grasp the glory of the cross, cherish it for the treasure that it is, and cleave to it as the highest price of every pleasure and the deepest comfort in every pain. What was once foolishness to us—a crucified God—must become our wisdom and our power and our only boast in this world.”
94
Share
“Wisdom is not the result of having learned enough; it comes when you know there is never enough learning.”
95
Share
“God can multiply your time and help you get more done. He can multiply your wisdom and help you to make better decisions.”
96
Share
“Wisdom is the warrior’s greatest weapon. When you have wisdom, you are never unarmed, you are never defenseless, and you are never powerless. You need skill to know how to shoot an arrow straight, but only wisdom can teach you how to never need to shoot it.”
97
Share
“Wisdom is meant to be shared, so let’s start sharing what we’ve learned to make each other better. Let’s start building each other up. Let’s live up to our potential and start ruling the world.”
98
Share
″‘You, our friend, our intelligence, our invisible protector’, said he, ‘accept this commission; you have merited it more than any of us by your wisdom and your counsels...‘”
99
Share
“Salvation is the freeing of the soul from its bodily fetters, becoming a God through knowledge and wisdom, controlling the forces of the cosmos instead of being a slave to them, subduing the lower nature and through awakening the Higher Self, ending the cycle of rebirth and dwelling with the netters who direct who direct and control the Great Plan.”
100
Share
“I wondered how he could live with her like this. He had more books than I’ve ever seen in all my life - two libraries, two rooms loaded from floor to ceiling around all four walls, and such books as the Apocryphal Something-or-Other in ten volumes. He played Verdi operas and pantomimed them in his pajamas with a great rip down the back. He didn’t give a damn about anything. He is a great scholar who goes reeling down the New York waterfront with original seventeenth-century musical manuscripts under his arm, shouting. He crawls like a big spider through the streets. His excitement blew out of his eyes in stabs of fiendish light. He rolled his neck in spastic ecstasy. He lisped, he writhed, he flopped, he moaned, he howled, he fell back in despair. He could hardly get a word out, he was so excited with life.”
101
Share
“First reports of him came to me through Chad King, who’d shown me a few letters from him written in a New Mexico reform school. I was tremendously interested in the letters because they so naively and sweetly asked Chad to teach him all about Nietzsche and all the wonderful intellectual things that Chad knew. At one point Carlo and I talked about the letters and wondered if we would ever meet the strange Dean Moriarty.”
102
Share
“Gandalf was shorter in stature than the other two; but his long white hair, his sweeping beard, and his broad shoulders, made him look like some wise king of ancient legend. In his aged face under great snowy brows his eyes were set like coals that could suddenly burst into fire.”
103
Share
“And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”
104
Share
“Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise.”
105
Share
“The warrior does not wield a weapon; they are a weapon. Their strength does not come from the weapons they hold but from the wisdom that has taken hold of them.”
106
Share
“Abandon your notions of the past, without attributing a temporal sequence! Cut off your mental associations regarding the future, without anticipation! Rest in a spacious modality, without clinging to [the thoughts of] the present. Do not meditate at all, since there is nothing upon which to meditate. Instead, revelation will come through undistracted mindfulness — Since there is nothing by which you can be distracted.”
107
Share
“...beauty alters the grain of reality. And I keep thinking too of the more conventional wisdom: namely, that the pursuit of pure beauty is a trap, a fast track to bitterness and sorrow, that beauty has to be wedded to something more meaningful.”
108
Share
“But do not despise the lore that has come down from distant years; for oft it may chance that old wives keep in memory word of things that once were needful for the wise to know.”
109
Share
“Fearlessness, singleness of soul, the will Always to strive for wisdom; opened hand And governed appetites; and piety, And love of lonely study; humbleness, Uprightness, heed to injure nought which lives, Truthfulness, slowness unto wrath, a mind That lightly letteth go what others prize; And equanimity, and charity Which spieth no man’s faults; and tenderness Towards all that suffer; a contented heart, Fluttered by no desires; a bearing mild, Modest, and grave, with manhood nobly mixed, With patience, fortitude, and purity; An unrevengeful spirit, never given To rate itself too high;--such be the signs, O Indian Prince! of him whose feet are set On that fair path which leads to heavenly birth!”
Anonymous
author
Krishna
character
patience
wisdom
virtue
concepts
110
Share
“Yet farther will I open unto thee This wisdom of all wisdoms, uttermost, The which possessing, all My saints have passed To perfectness.”
111
Share
“From the errors of other nations, let us learn wisdom...”
112
Share
“As the bee collects nectar and departs without injuring the flower, or its colour or scent, so let a sage dwell in his village.”
113
Share
“The king, who was the wisest man in the kingdom, knew well there was a time when things must be done and questions left till afterwards.”
114
Share
“There is no happiness where there is no wisdom; no wisdom but in submission to the gods. Big words are always punished, and proud men in old age learn to be wise.”
115
Share
″‘Wisdom is sometimes given to the young, as well as to the old,’ he said; ‘and what you have spoken is wise, not to call it by a better word.‘”
116
Share
“My mind possessed the wisdoms of the ages, and there were no words adequate to describe them.”
117
Share
“The more of wisdom we know, the more we may earn. That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded.”
118
Share
Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.
119
Share
“But where were the Brahmans, where the priests, where the wise men or penitents, who had succeeded in not just knowing this deepest of all knowledge but also to live it?”
120
Share
“Love is not simply giving; it is judicious giving and judicious withholding as well. It is judicious praising and judicious criticizing. [...] It is leadership. The word ‘judicious’ means requiring judgment, and judgment requires more than instinct; it requires thoughtful and often painful decision making.”
121
Share
“Yet it is in this whole process of meeting and solving problems that life has its meaning. Problems are the cutting edge that distinguishes between success and failure. Problems call forth our courage and our wisdom; indeed, they create our courage and our wisdom.”
122
Share
“Do you hear?” Vasudeva’s mute gaze asked. Siddhartha nodded. “Listen better!” Vasudeva whispered.
123
Share
“Understanding comes with life.”
124
Share
“You alone are the life which never dies and the wisdom that needs no light besides itself, but illumines all who need to be enlightened, the wisdom that governs the world, down to the leaves that flutter on the trees.”
125
Share
“I’d love to watch TV all the time but it rots our brains.”
Room
book
Jack
character
126
Share
“His idea is that whenever you encounter any other grokking thing—man, woman, or stray cat…you are meeting your ‘other end.’ The universe is a thing we whipped up among us and agreed to forget the gag. Jubal looked sour. ‘Solipsism and pantheism. Together they explain anything. Cancel out any inconvenient fact, reconcile all theories, include any facts or delusions you like. But it’s cotton candy, all taste and no substance—as unsatisfactory as solving a story by saying: ‘—then the little boy fell out of bed and woke up.‘”
127
Share
“I know that already, everything’s breakable.”
Room
book
Jack
character
128
Share
“Alexander Rostov was neither scientist nor sage; but at the age of sixty-four he was wise enough to know that life does not proceed by leaps and bounds. It unfolds. At any given moment, it is the manifestation of a thousand transitions. Our faculties wax and wane, our experiences accumulate and our opinions evolve--if not glacially, then at least gradually. Such that the events of an average day are as likely to transform who we are as a pinch of pepper is to transform a stew.”
129
Share
“All my empty dreams suddenly lost their charm and my heart began to throb with a bewildering passion for the wisdom of eternal truth.”
130
Share
“In an unfamiliar culture, it is wise to offer no innovations, no suggestions, or lessons.”
131
Share
“It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”
132
Share
“Grown-ups never understand anything by themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them.”
133
Share
“Never hurry and never worry!”
134
Share
“Miracles are like pimples, because once you start looking for them you find more than you ever dreamed you’d see.”
135
Share
“Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures, hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?”
136
Share
“Do the wise thing and the kind thing too, and make the best of us and not the worst.”
137
Share
“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
138
Share
“Because they are mean is no reason why I should be. I hate such things, and though I think I’ve a right to be hurt, I don’t intend to show it.”
139
Share
“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.”
140
Share
“You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.”
141
Share
“Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a child—What do you want to be when you grow up? As if growing up is finite. As if at some point you become something and that’s the end.”
142
Share
“Wisely and slow; they stumble that run fast.”
143
Share
“No, that is the great fallacy, the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
144
Share
“There is a basket of fresh bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts.”
145
Share
“Fish don’t hold the sacred liquid in cups! They swim the huge fluid freedom.”
146
Share
“I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me? Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things.”
147
Share
We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.
148
Share
As I ate she began the first of what we later called “my lessons in living.” She said that I must always be intolerant of ignorance but understanding of illiteracy. That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors. She encouraged me to listen carefully to what country people called mother wit. That in those homely sayings was couched the collective wisdom of generations.
149
Share
The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents.
150
Share
Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication.
151
Share
And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. . . . Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
152
Share
They are the magi.
153
Share
“Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”
154
Share
“Had you been as wise as bold, Young in limbs, in judgement old, Your answer had not been inscrolled. Fare you well, your suit is cold.”
155
Share
“There is beauty in compassion, but one must learn wisdom too.”
156
Share
It may be taken for granted that, rash as the Americans are, when they are prudent there is good reason for it.
157
Share
“‘It has made me better loving you,’ he said on another occasion; ‘it has made me wiser, and easier, and brighter.‘”
158
Share
“She had a theory that it was only on this condition that life was worth living; that one should be one of the best, should be conscious of a fine organization, should move in the realm of light, of natural wisdom, of happy impulse, of inspiration gracefully chronic.”
159
Share
“The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea.”
160
Share
“The wise speak only of what they know.”
161
Share
“So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.”
162
Share
We that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long.
163
Share
“How did this girl come to be? I used to ask myself. Sometimes I thought she should be teaching me. She seems to be in touch with something that the rest of us are missing.”
164
Share
“They knew everything, the Brahmans and their holy books, they knew everything, they had taken care of everything and of more than everything, the creation of the world, the origin of speech, of food, of inhaling, of exhaling, the arrangement of the senses, the acts of the gods, they knew infinitely much—but was it valuable to know all of this, not knowing that one and only thing, the most important thing, the solely important thing?”
165
Share
“He had started to suspect that his venerable father and his other teachers, that the wise Brahmans had already revealed to him the most and best of their wisdom, that they had already filled his expecting vessel with their richness, and the vessel was not full, the spirit was not content, the soul was not calm, the heart was not satisfied.”
166
Share
Govinda said: “Still, oh Siddhartha, you love a bit to mock people, as it seems to me. I believe in you and know that you haven’t followed a teacher. But haven’t you found something by yourself, though you’ve found no teachings, you still found certain thoughts, certain insights, which are your own and which help you to live? If you would like to tell me some of these, you would delight my heart.” Quoth Siddhartha: “I’ve had thoughts, yes, and insight, again and again. Sometimes, for an hour or for an entire day, I have felt knowledge in me, as one would feel life in one’s heart. There have been many thoughts, but it would be hard for me to convey them to you. Look, my dear Govinda, this is one of my thoughts, which I have found: wisdom cannot be passed on. Wisdom which a wise man tries to pass on to someone always sounds like foolishness.”
167
Share
“Vasudeva rose. “It is late,” he said, “let’s go to sleep. I can’t tell you that other thing, oh friend. You’ll learn it, or perhaps you know it already. See, I’m no learned man, I have no special skill in speaking, I also have no special skill in thinking. All I’m able to do is to listen and to be godly, I have learned nothing else. If I was able to say and teach it, I might be a wise man, but like this I am only a ferryman, and it is my task to ferry people across the river.” ”
168
Share
“I wish that you, oh exalted one, would not be angry with me,” said the young man. “I have not spoken to you like this to argue with you, to argue about words. You are truly right, there is little to opinions. But let me say this one more thing: I have not doubted in you for a single moment. I have not doubted for a single moment that you are Buddha, that you have reached the goal, the highest goal towards which so many thousands of Brahmans and sons of Brahmans are on their way. You have found salvation from death. It has come to you in the course of your own search, on your own path, through thoughts, through meditation, through realizations, through enlightenment. It has not come to you by means of teachings! And—thus is my thought, oh exalted one—nobody will obtain salvation by means of teachings! You will not be able to convey and say to anybody, oh venerable one, in words and through teachings what has happened to you in the hour of enlightenment! The teachings of the enlightened Buddha contain much, it teaches many to live righteously, to avoid evil. But there is one thing which these so clear, these so venerable teachings do not contain: they do not contain the mystery of what the exalted one has experienced for himself, he alone among hundreds of thousands. This is what I have thought and realized, when I have heard the teachings. This is why I am continuing my travels—not to seek other, better teachings, for I know there are none, but to depart from all teachings and all teachers and to reach my goal by myself or to die. But often, I’ll think of this day, oh exalted one, and of this hour, when my eyes beheld a holy man.”
169
Share
“Knowledge can be conveyed, but not wisdom. It can be found, it can be lived, it is possible to be carried by it, miracles can be performed with it, but it cannot be expressed in words and taught.”
170
Share
“There is a moment, a cusp, when the sum of gathered experience is worn down by the details of living. We are never so wise as when we live in this moment.”
171
Share
“Prudence consists in knowing how to distinguish the character of troubles, and for choice to take the lesser evil.”
172
Share
“A prince who is not wise himself will never take good advice.”
173
Share
“Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes.”
174
Share
“If we do not abide in prayer, we will abide in temptation.”
175
Share
“Each time, you’ll learn something. Each time, you’ll develop strength, wisdom, and perspective. Each time, a little more of the competition falls away. Until all that is left is you: the best version of you.”
176
Share
“Today Plato is nearly forgotten. His beliefs include the notion that people who govern should be intelligent, rational, self-controlled, and in love with wisdom, an idea that has long been discredited.”
177
Share
“Mentioning the faults of others does not rid us of our own.”
178
Share
“Most prospects in life are marred by the shuffling worldly wisdom of men, who, forgetting that they cannot serve God and mammon, endeavor to blend contradictory things.”
179
Share
″ A democracy with this effort by its people must and can face its problems, that it must show patience, restraint, compassion, as well as wisdom and strength and courage, in the struggle for solutions which are very rarely easy to find.”
180
Share
“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life’s meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable.”
181
Share
“It is a seat of wisdom, a light of the world, a minister of the faith, an Alma Mater of the rising generation. It is this and a great deal more, and demands a somewhat better head and hand than mine to describe it well.”
182
Share
“They all know that it has to be there . . . they all understand that their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers . . . depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”
183
Share
“When the ears of the student are ready to hear, then cometh the lips to fill them with Wisdom.”
184
Share
“Your willingness to jump will open doors for you. Every jump will increase your wisdom and broaden your vision.”
185
Share
“The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of Understanding”
186
Share
“Poor Old Ones! Scientists to the last -- what had they done that we would not have done in their place?”
187
Share
“It is clear, then, that wisdom is knowledge having to do with certain principles and causes. But now, since it is this knowledge that we are seeking, we must consider the following point: Of what kind of principles and of what kind of causes is wisdom the knowledge?”
188
Share
“But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less cocksure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend.”
189
Share
“Nobody likes to see a stupid guy wise up.”
190
Share
“In many parts of this world water is Scarce and precious. People sometimes have to walk A great distance Then carry heavy jugs upon their heads. Because of our wisdom, we will travel far for love.”
191
Share
“Lord, let the spirit of wisdom rest on the White House and Capitol. Protect our president and his family from sabotage, lies, conspiracies, terrorist attacks, enemy infiltrations, and assassination. Put Your angels around the first lady and the children. Let their personal affairs be covered by the blood of Jesus.”
192
Share
“He was like me--he just yearned for there to be someone in the world like Leo, someone with a secret knowledge and a wisdom beyond his own.”
193
Share
“Mary had Joseph. Esther had Mordecai. Ruth had Boaz. We will not become the women God intends us to be without the guidance, counsel, wisdom, strength, and love of good men in our lives.”
194
Share
“An unwise man thinks he’ll live forever if only he can avoid a fight, but old age will give him no peace, even if weapons do.”
195
Share
“A man is happy if he finds praise and friendship within himself. You can never be sure of where you stand in someone else’s heart.”
196
Share
“You should be only a little wise, never too wise. A wise man’s heart is seldom glad if he’s truly wise.”
197
Share
“At every doorway before you enter, you should look around, you should take a good look around--for you never know where your enemies might be seated within.”
198
Share
“A wise man is not showy about his wisdom; he guards it carefully. He is silent when he comes to a stranger’s home. The wise man seldom wanders into harm, for you can never have a more faithful friend than a good supply of wisdom.”
199
Share
“A traveler cannot bring a better burden on the road than plenty of wisdom, and he can bring no worse a burden than too much alcohol.”
200
Share
“Martin the Warrior used the sword only for right and good. This is why it has become a symbol of power to Redwall. Knowledge is gained through wisdom, my friend. Use the sword wisely.”
201
Share
“Knowledge is a thing that one cannot have enough of. It is the fruit of wisdom, to be eaten carefully and digested fully, unlike that lunch you are bolting down, little friend.”
202
Share
“Sitting around miserable all day won’t make you any happier.”
203
Share
“The straight path must sometimes be crooked.”
204
Share
“It is because of its emptiness that the cup is useful.”
205
Share
“She feel’s it’s important to come prepared.”
206
Share
“If you refuse to entertain a baby cousin, the baby cousin may get bored and entertain itself by wandering off and falling down a well. If you refuse to entertain a pack of hyenas, they may become restless and entertain themselves by devouring you.”
207
Share
“Time...why is it time? What is time, dad?”
208
Share
″‘Tell me, Cricket, who you may be?’ ‘I am the Talking-Cricket, and I have lived in this room a hundred years and more.’ ‘Now, however, this room is mine,’ said the puppet, ‘and if you would do me a pleasure go away at once, without even turning around.’ ‘I will not go,’ answered the Cricket, ‘until I have told you a great truth.‘”
209
Share
“Don’t trust to those who promise to make you rich in a day. Usually they are either mad or rogues.”
210
Share
“It is said that the current duke had an ancestor so wise that even as a child he could do complex mathematical calculations. prove difficult geometric theorems, and accurately locate the constellations in the sky.”
211
Share
“He’s a man of few words, and he doesn’t know what either of them means,” people said, but not when he was within hearing.”
212
Share
“There is a difference. That book is for true healers. Men of age and wisdom. There is more in there than even an apothecary knows. More than an apothecary should know.”
213
Share
“In the first place, the Browns are a fighting family. One may question their wisdom, or wit, or beauty, but about their fight there can be no question.”
214
Share
There’s a warmth in this book, a profound understanding of the cycle of birth and death, and a wisdom that knows that big things like joy and wonder are often found in little things like robins and Liquorice Allsorts and penknives.
215
Share
“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own...”
216
Share
“What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated-tranquility, fearlessness and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.”
217
Share
“Good doesn’t always follow from good deeds, nor bad deeds result form bad, does it? Even the wise and good cannot see the end of all actions. Scary idea!”
218
Share
“Pain doesn’t get easier. You just have to get stronger.”
219
Share
“It’s not wandering if I know how to get home.”
220
Share
“Few understand that procrastination is our natural defense, letting things take care of themselves and exercise their antifragility; it results from some ecological or naturalistic wisdom, and is not always bad -- at an existential level, it is my body rebelling against its entrapment. It is my soul fighting the Procrustean bed of modernity.”
221
Share
“Don’t spoil her with toys; spoil her with books.”
222
Share
“Estrangement from the collective consciousness of humanity’s wisdom is just one more thing that sets scythes apart from others.”
223
Share
″‘Does anyone truly get anyone, Jay?’ ‘Deep,’ I say sarcastically. ‘Nothing like wisdom from on high.‘”
224
Share
“Doc would listen to any kind of nonsense and turn it into wisdom. His mind had no horizon - and his sympathy had no warp. He could talk to children, telling them very profound things so that they understood. He lived in a world of wonders, of excitement. He was concupiscent as a rabbit and gentle as hell. Everyone who knew him was indebted to him. And everyone who thought of him thought next, ‘I really must do something nice for Doc.”
225
Share
“Most of the old moles I know with they had listened less to their fears and more to their dreams.”
226
Share
“Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”
227
Share
“What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?”
228
Share
“Knowledge is a matter of knowing facts. Wisdom is a matter of understanding and applying principles. A certain amount of knowledge is necessary for wisdom, and without wisdom, knowledge is not only useless, it’s dangerous.”
229
Share
“Then accumulated knowledge is not wisdom? A Great heavens, no! If knowledge were wisdom, the achievements of science would not have been converted into implements of destruction.”
230
Share
All his wisdom is but folly before Zeus.
Aeschylus
author
Prologus
character
wisdom
concept
231
Share
“And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
232
Share
“If knowledge is power, knowing what we don’t know is wisdom.”
233
Share
“Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.”
234
Share
“This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.”
235
Share
“if you challenge the conventional wisdom, you will find ways to do things much better than they are currently done.”

Recommended quote pages

View All Quotes

Bookroo

Book Clubs

Follow Bookroo