Wisdom Quotes

Job 28:28 “And unto man he said, Behold, the fear of the LORD, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil is understanding.”

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.

SOPHOCLES, Antigone

Job 12:12 “With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.”

There are many gates to the house of wisdom.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Proverbs 4:5-7 “Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.”

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

ECKHART TOLLE, Stillness Speaks

Psalm 111:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth  forever.”

Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.

SOPHOCLES, Antigone

Proverbs 3:7 “Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.”

Wisdom is a treasure, the key whereof is never lost.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.

LEONID ANDREYEV, "Lazarus"

Proverbs 9:10 “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;

Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

WILLIAM COWPER, The Task

Proverbs 11:2 “He that is void of wisdom despiseth his neighbour: but a man of understanding holdeth his peace.”

Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.

NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, The Prince

What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Emile

Proverbs 11:30 “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he that winneth souls is wise.”

A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.

WILLIAM BLAKE, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

Knowledge is flour, but wisdom is bread.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

Proverbs 14:8 “The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.”

The road to true wisdom has seldom been spanned by mortals.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Wisdom comes only through hardship.

AESCHYLUS, Agamemnon

Proverbs 16:16 “How much better is it to get wisdom than gold! and to get understanding rather to be chosen than silver!”

Man's highest blessedness,

In wisdom chiefly stands;

And in the things that touch upon God,

'Tis best in word or deed

To shun unholy pride;

Great words of boasting bring great punishments,

And so to grey-haired age

Teach wisdom at the last.

SOPHOCLES, Antigone

Proverbs 29:15 “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.”

Justice without wisdom is impossible.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE, Short Studies on Great Subjects

The wealth of mankind is the wisdom they leave.

JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY, "Rules of the Road"

The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue.

IVAN PANIN, Thoughts

Ecclesiastes 7:12 “For wisdom is a defence, and money is a defence: but the excellency of knowledge is, that wisdom giveth life to them that have it.”

If we drink from the fountain of wisdom,

We thirst for its waters evermore.

ARDELIA COTTON BARTON, Thoughts

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

ALFRED TENNYSON, Locksley Hall

James 1:5 , 6 “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

Wisdom grows in quiet places.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

It's a beautiful thing, the blossoming of Wisdom. Like a flower in spring.

MICHAEL RUDD, Clothes for their Souls

James 3:17 “But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.”

When wisdom leaves the house folly enters it.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

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

WALTER LIPPMANN, A Preface to Morals

None of us was born knowing or wise; but men become wise by consideration, observation, experience.
BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, Moral and Religious Aphorisms

Knowledge is learning something new every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.
ZEN PROVERB

For wisdom is better than rubies; and all the things that may be desired are not to be compared to it.
PROVERBS 8:11

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.
BERTOLT BRECHT, The Caucasian Chalk Circle

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground.
ARTHUR HELPS, Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd

Wisdom is understanding when to ask questions.
BRIAN HERBERT & KEVIN J. ANDERSON, Dune: House Harkonnen

The knowledge and experience which produce wisdom can only become a man's individual possession and property by his own free action; and it is as futile to expect these without laborious, painstaking effort, as it is to hope to gather a harvest where the seed has not been sown.
SAMUEL SMILES, Self-Help

Wisdom always makes men fortunate: for by wisdom no man could ever err, and therefore he must act rightly and succeed, or his wisdom would be wisdom no longer.
PLATO, Euthydemus

Wisdom is also a deeper consciousness of ignorance.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

The difference between a wise and foolish man is this--the former sees much, thinks much, and speaks little; but the latter speaks more than he either sees or thinks.

WILLIAM SCOTT DOWNEY, Proverbs

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

LEONARDO DA VINCI, Thoughts on Art and Life

The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon

An ignorant man is always able to say yes or no immediately to any proposition. To a wise man, comparatively few things can be propounded which do not require a response with qualifications, with discriminations, with proportion.

HORACE MANN, Thoughts

Wisdom is mostly the fruit of experience.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Cunning is seeing a hundred yards ahead--wisdom, fifty miles in advance.

CHARLES WILLIAM DAY, The Maxims, Experiences, and Observations of Agogos

Who knows whence he comes, where he is, and whither he tends, he, and he alone, is wise.

JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER, Aphorisms on Man

Wisdom is ever fresh; other things grow stale, but this is the evergreen flower of nature.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

A wise man heedeth all things, and in his own eyes is a fool.

MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER, Proverbial Philosophy

Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon

Learned men fall into error oftenest by mistaking knowledge for wisdom.

AUSTIN O'MALLEY, Keystones of Thought

The beginning of wisdom is the knowledge of folly.

NORMAN MACDONALD, Maxims and Moral Reflections

Like gold in the hands of a savage are the sayings of wisdom in the mouth of a fool.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

He that thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon

Wisdom's door is ever open.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Wisdom is the perception of the unimportance of the things we call great, and of the importance of the things we call small.

CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM, The Maxims of Marmaduke

Wise men know each other.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

A simple realization that there are other points of view is the beginning of wisdom.

GRENVILLE KLEISER, Dictionary of Proverbs

Wisdom is a safe ship; and we may trust ourselves to it in all weathers.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

Be wise before the storm.

EDWARD COUNSEL, Maxims

The wisdom of our parents, grandparents, ancestors. In each individual life, it seems, we must first reject that wisdom, then later come to appreciate it.

TAD WILLIAMS, Otherland: City of Golden Shadow