An aphorism is nothing else but the slightest
QUOTES AND APHORISMS ON WISDOM 1
We cannot advance without new experiments in living, but no wise man tries every day what he has proved wrong the day before.
James Truslow Adams (1878-1949, American historian, editor)
The fool who persists in his folly will become wise.
William Blake (1757-1827, British poet, painter)
The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
William Blake (1757-1827, British poet, painter)
Wise people, even though all laws were abolished, would still lead the same life.
Aristophanes (BC 448-380, Greek comic poet, satirist)
Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know -- and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance. It is better to know -- even if the knowledge endures only for the moment that comes before destruction -- than to gain eternal life at the price of a dull and swinish lack of comprehension of a universe that swirls unseen before us in all its wonder. That was the choice of Achilles, and it is mine, too.
Isaac Asimov (1920-1992, Russian-born American author)
The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid.
Marcus Aurelius (121-12180, Roman emperor, philosopher)
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it, thou art a fool.
Rabbi Ben Azai (Israeli rabbi)
For it is not possible to join serpentine wisdom with columbine innocence, except men know exactly all the conditions of the serpent: his baseness and going upon his belly, his volubility and lubricity, his envy and sting, and the rest; that is, all forms and natures of evil: for without this, virtue lieth open and unfenced.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.
Francis Bacon (1561-1626, British philosopher, essayist, statesman)
Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.
Sir Francis Bacon
Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Seek what they sought.
Matsuo Basho (1644-1694, Japanese poet)
Wise men still seek Him today.
Dan Bell (American actor)
The live in wisdom who see themselves in all and all in them, who have renounced every selfish desire and sense craving tormenting the heart.
Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400-, Sanskrit poem incorporated into the Mahabharata)
When you move amidst the world of sense, free from attachment and aversion alike, there comes the peace in which all sorrows end, and you live in the wisdom of the Self.
Bhagavad Gita (c. BC 400-, Sanskrit poem incorporated into the Mahabharata)
Some folks are wise and some otherwise.
Josh Billings (1815-1885, American humorist, lecturer)
The price of wisdom is eternal thought.
Frank Birch (American actor)
What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
William Blake (1757-1827, British poet, painter)
The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.
Nicholas Boileau (1636-1711, French literary poet, critic)
The only one who is wiser than anyone is everyone.
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821, French general, emperor)
The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.
Hal Borland (1900-1978, American writer)
True wisdom lies in gathering the precious things out of each day as it goes by.
E. S. Bouton
Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956, German dramatist, poet)
Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear.
Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)
Your enemy can be your greatest teacher.
Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)
As irrigators lead water where they want, as archers make their arrows straight, as carpenters carve wood, the wise shape their minds.
Buddha (568-488 BC, Indian born, founder of Buddhism)
Nine times out of ten it is over the Bridge of Sighs that we pass the narrow gulf from youth to manhood. That interval is usually marked by an ill placed or disappointed affection. We recover and we find ourselves a new being. The intellect has become hardened by the fire through which it has passed. The mind profits by the wrecks of every passion, and we may measure our road to wisdom by the sorrows we have undergone.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873, British novelist, poet)
If I don't have wisdom, I can teach you only ignorance.
Leo Buscaglia (1924-1998, American expert on love, lecturer, author)
Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can be gotten without it.
Samuel Butler (1612-1680, British poet, satirist)
It is characteristic of all deep human problems that they are not to be approached without some humor and some bewilderment.
Freeman Dyson (1923-, British-born American physicist, author)
The greatest event for the world is the arrival of a new and wise person.
Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881, Scottish philosopher, author)
Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
Cato The Elder (BC 234-149, Roman statesman, orator)
Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.
Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist, poet)
Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.
George Chapman (1557-1634, British dramatist, translator, poet)
The greatest scholars are not usually the wisest people.
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400, British poet)
Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil -- not the strength to choose between the two.
John Cheever (1912-1982, American author)
The wise man knows nothing if he cannot benefit from his wisdom. Wisdom is not only to be acquired, but also to be utilized.
Marcus T. Cicero (c. 106-43 BC, Roman orator, politician)
Everything I know I learned after I was thirty.
Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929, French statesman)
The extreme limit of wisdom -- that's what the public calls madness.
Jean Cocteau (1889-1963, French author, filmmaker)
A wise man thinks what is easy is difficult.
John Churton Collins
The mistakes of the fool are known to the world, but not to himself. The mistakes of the wise man are known to himself, but not to the world.
Charles Caleb Colton (1780-1832, British sportsman writer)
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
There are three methods to gain wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.
Confucius (BC 551-479, Chinese ethical teacher, philosopher)
No one over thirty-five is worth meeting who has not something to teach us, something more than we could learn for ourselves, from a book.
Cyril Connolly (1903-1974, British critic)
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.
Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933, American President (30th))
Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
Norman Cousins (1915-1990, American editor, humanitarian, author)
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. It embraces judgment, discernment, comprehension. It is a gestalt or oneness, and integrated wholeness.
Stephen R. Covey (1932-, American speaker, trainer, author of "The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People")
Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God, or several signatures of that one archetypal seal, or like so many multiplied reflections of one and the same face, made in several glasses, whereof some are clearer, some obscurer, some standing nearer, some further off.
Ralph J. Cudworth (1617-1688, British theologian, philosopher)
Wisdom is the daughter of experience.
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519, Italian inventor, architect, painter, scientist, sculptor)
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
Charles Dickens (1812-1870, British novelist)
All human wisdom is summed up in two words; wait and hope.
Alexandre (the Younger) Dumas (1824-1895, French writer)
Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Life is a festival only to the wise.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
He who exercises wisdom exercises the knowledge which is about God.
Epictetus (50-138, Phrygian philosopher)
Let us not take ourselves too seriously. None of us has a monopoly on wisdom.
Queen Elizabeth (1926-, British Queen)
Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
There is a time when a man distinguishes the idea of felicity from the idea of wealth; it is the beginning of wisdom.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882, American poet, essayist)
A wise man is he who does not grieve for the thing which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epictetus (50-138, Phrygian philosopher)
This type of man who is devoted to the study of wisdom is always most unlucky in everything, and particularly when it comes to procreating children; I imagine this is because Nature wants to ensure that the evils of wisdom shall not spread further throughout mankind.
Desiderius Erasmus (c.1466-1536, Dutch humanist)
A man's most valuable trait is a judicious sense of what not to believe.
Euripides (BC 480-406, Greek tragic poet)
Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.
Euripides (BC 480-406, Greek tragic poet)
In goodness there are all kinds of wisdom.
Euripides (BC 480-406, Greek tragic poet)
Wisdom is meaningless until our own experience has given it meaning.
Bergen Evans (1904-1978, American author)
There are many excuses for the person who made the mistake of confounding money and wealth. Like many others they mistook the sign for the thing signified.
Millicent Garrett Fawcett
People in big empty places are likely to behave very much as the gods did on Olympus.
Edna Ferber (1887-1968, American author)
Timing, degree and conviction are the three wise men in this life.
R. I. Fitzhenry
Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right!
Henry Ford (1863-1947, American industrialist, founder of Ford Motor Company)
Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.
Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965, Austrian-born American law teacher, judge)
Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.
Felix Frankfurter (1882-1965, Austrian-born American law teacher, judge)
The doors of wisdom are never shut.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American scientist, publisher, diplomat)
Where sense is wanting, everything is wanting.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790, American scientist, publisher, diplomat)
Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.
Sigmund Freud (1856-1939, Austrian physician, founder of Psychoanalysis)
A wise man's questions contain half the answer.
Ibn Gabirol
The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.
Ibn Gabirol
One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.
John Kenneth Galbraith (1908-, American economist)
Freedom and slavery are mental states.
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948, Indian political, spiritual leader)
The man who questions opinions is wise. The man who quarrels with facts is a fool.
Frank Garbutt
Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh, and the greatness which does not bow before children.
Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931, Lebanese poet, novelist)
This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Wisdom is found only in truth.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749-1832, German poet, dramatist, novelist)
Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, and fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
Wisdom makes a slow defense against trouble, though a sure one in the end.
Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774, Anglo-Irish author, poet, playwright)
It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894, American author, wit, poet)
There's more learning than is taught in books.
Augusta Gregory
The wise man can pick up a grain of sand and envision a whole universe. But the stupid man will just lay down on some seaweed and roll around in it until he's completely draped in it. Then he'll stand up and go hey, I'm Vine Man.
Jack Handey
I have known it for a long time but I have only just experienced it. Now I know it not only with my intellect, but with my eyes, with my heart, with my stomach.
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962, German-born Swiss novelist, poet)
Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot utter or teach it.
Hermann Hesse (1877-1962, German-born Swiss novelist, poet)
There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.
Edward Hoagland (1932-, American novelist, essayist)
Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.
Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679, British philosopher)
The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.
Eric Hoffer (1902-1983, American author, philosopher)
Wisdom oft times consists of knowing what to do next.
Herbert Clark Hoover (1874-1964, American President (31st))
Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
Your own property is at stake when your neighbor's house is on fire.
Horace (BC 65-8, Italian poet)
The constancy of the wise is only their art of concealing their inner annoyance.
Francois De La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680, French classical writer)
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
Wisdom is learning what to overlook.
William James (1842-1910, American psychologist, professor, author)
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784, British author)
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