Wisdom Quotes

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.

Sophocles, Antigone

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

Francis Hutcheson

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

Margaret Fulle

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

Solitude is the best nurse of wisdom.

Laurence Sterne

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

Walter Lippmann

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

H. L. Mencken

Man lowers his head and lunges into civilization, forgetting the days of his infancy when he sought truth in a snowflake or a stick. Man forgets the wisdom of the child.

Jack Kerouac

It does not take sharp eyes to see the sun and the moon, nor does it take sharp ears to hear the thunderclap. Wisdom is not obvious. You must see the subtle and notice the hidden to be victorious.

Sun Tzu, The Art of Wa

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, not even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity, and trust.

Henry David Thoreau

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not by my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Igor Stravinsky

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuh

I have learned throughout my life as a composer chiefly through my mistakes and pursuits of false assumptions, not my exposure to founts of wisdom and knowledge.

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky

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

A prudent question is one half of wisdom.

Sir Francis Bacon

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

Jimi Hendrix

The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.

William Faulkne

Strength and wisdom are not opposing values.

Bill Clinton, 2004 democratic convention speech

Whosover loveth wisdom is righteous, but he that keepeth company with fowl is weird.

Woody Allen, "Without Feathers".

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

Marilyn vos Savant

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

Aldous Huxley

Under a ragged coat lies wisdom.

Romanian Prove

I was very strange back then. I could see I had problems. I would sit in a closet a lot of the time and not come out, or I would sit up on top of my desk, or under my desk, or do weird things like get my wisdom teeth out and bleed all over the hallways.

Tim Burton, Burton On Burton

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

Vernon Coope

No man is wiser for his learning, wit and wisdom are born with a man.

John Selden

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerve give to wisdom.

Mark Twain

Wisdom comes with winters.

Oscar Wildedmissions literature at Colby College.

In seeking wisdom thou are wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it thou are a fool.

Rabbi Ben - Azai

Where love and wisdom drink out of the same cup, in this everyday world, it is the exception.

Madame Necke

Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.

Merry Browne

Philosopher A lover of wisdom, which is to say, Truth.

Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.

Saint Augustine

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

He is happiest who hath power to gather wisdom from a flower.

Mary Howitt

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

Sandra Carey

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

Akhenaton

The aim of science is not to open the door to infinite wisdom, but to set a limit to infinite error.

Bertolt Brecht, The life of Galileo

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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

Marilyn vos Savant