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Wisdom quotes

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“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.” William Shakespeare, “As You Like It” - 1623

“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.” Leonardo da Vinci, “The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci” - 1478 – 1519

“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“For the function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil; whereas, inasmuch as all things morally wrong are evil, trickery prefers the evil to the good.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, “On Duties” - 44 BC

“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Emile, or On Education” - 1762

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;” William Shakespeare, “Hamlet” - 1623

“It's the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.” Paulo Coelho, “The Alchemist” - 1988

“Stupidity and wisdom meet in the same centre of sentiment and resolution, in the suffering of human accidents.” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“His grief he will not forget; but it will not darken his heart, it will teach him wisdom.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Return of the King” - 1955

“True words aren't eloquent; eloquent words aren't true. Wise men don't need to prove their point; men who need to prove their point aren't wise.” Lao Tzu, “Tao Te Ching” - 4th century BC

“O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant.” William Shakespeare, “Measure for Measure” - 1623

“A wise man will make more opportunities, than he finds.” Francis Bacon, “The Essays of Francis Bacon” - 1597

“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.” Lewis Carroll, “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland” - 1865

“At fifteen, life had taught me that surrender, sometimes, was as honorable as resistance, especially if one had no choice.” Maya Angelou, “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” - 1969

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.” Bertrand Russell, “The Conquest of Happiness” - 1930

“Chastisement for errors past Wisdom brings to age at last.” Sophocles, “Antigone” - c. 441 BC

“For 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: For they see their own wit at hand, and other...” Thomas Hobbes, “Leviathan” - 1651

“And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.” J. R. R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring” - 1954

“The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness” Michel de Montaigne, “The Essays of Michel de Montaigne” - 1580

“Wisdom is to speak the truth and act in keeping with its nature.” Heraclitus, “On Nature” - c. 535 – c. 475 BCE

“Then we may begin by assuming that there are three classes of men—lovers of wisdom, lovers of honour, lovers of gain?” Plato, “The Republic”

“I hate people who are not serious about meals. It is so shallow of them.” Oscar Wilde, “The Importance of Being Earnest” - 1895

“Books permit us to voyage through time, to tap the wisdom of our ancestors. ” Carl Sagan, “Cosmos” - 1980

“Real wisdom is being stored away in the subcellars by the misers of learning.” Henry Miller, “Tropic of Cancer” - 1934

“Wisdom . . . is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things.” Heraclitus, “On Nature” - c. 535 – c. 475 BCE

“I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.” Umberto Eco, “Foucault's Pendulum” - 1988

“Sure enough, of all paths a man could strike into, there is, at any given moment, a best path for every man; a thing which, here and now, it were of all things wisest for him to do” Thomas Carlyle, “Past and Present” - 1843

“Wisdom is the understanding of celestial things to which the Spirit is brought by Love.” Honoré de Balzac, “Séraphîta” - 1834

“The first years of man must make provision for the last. He that never thinks, never can be wise.” Samuel Johnson, “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia” - 1759

“Those who govern, having much business on their hands, do not generally like to take the trouble of considering and carrying into execution new projects. The best public measures are therefore seldom adopted from previous wisdom, but forc'd by...” Benjamin Franklin, “The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin” - 1791

“Do my best all-round keep good company, read good books, love good things, and cultivate soul and body as faithfully and wisely as I can.” Louisa May Alcott, “Rose in Bloom” - 1876

“Since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show.” William Shakespeare, “As You Like It” - 1623

“I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men.” William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2” - 1600

“Therefore all the wild elephants to-night will—but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?” Rudyard Kipling, “The Jungle Book” - 1894

“all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they know.” Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Compensation” - 1841

“You are bound to go up and down, just as I did in my youth, but do keep your clarity of mind, and if fools or sages dare to criticise don't blame yourself too much.” F. Scott Fitzgerald, “This Side of Paradise” - 1920

“Well, thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.” William Shakespeare, “Henry IV, Part 2” - 1600

“Could the straggling thoughts of individuals be collected, they would frequently form materials for wise and able men to improve into useful matter.” Thomas Paine, “Common Sense” - 1776

“Men who love wisdom should acquaint themselves with a great many particulars.” Heraclitus, “On Nature” - c. 535 – c. 475 BCE

“No country can act wisely simultaneously in every part of the globe at every moment of time.” Henry Kissinger, “White House Years” - 1979

“If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, “The Brothers Karamazov” - 1880

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.” William Shakespeare, “Twelfth Night” - 1623

“To err is common To all men, but the man who having erred Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.” Sophocles, “Antigone” - c. 441 BC

“For this is hardest of all: to close the open hand out of love, and keep modest as a giver. Thus passed with the lonesome one months and years; his wisdom meanwhile increased, and caused him pain by its abundance.” Friedrich Nietzsche, “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” - 1891

“It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.” Jack London, “White Fang” - 1906

“EDUCATION, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.” Ambrose Bierce, “The Devil's Dictionary” - 1906

“But if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.” William Shakespeare, “A Midsummer Night's Dream” - 1601

“She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! alas! she must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.” Jane Austen, “Persuasion” - 1816

“as happens in Wall Street all too often, what the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.” Warren Buffett, “The Essays of Warren Buffett” - 1997

“In science, as in art, and, as I believe, in every other sphere of human activity, there may be wisdom in a multitude of counsellors, but it is only in one or two of them. And, in scientific inquiry, at any rate, it is to that one or two that we...” Thomas Henry Huxley, “The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century” - 1887

Related topics

foolishness stupidity life age madness heart wit simplicity love strength men self-knowledge modesty knowledge listening happiness understanding experience pain books

Related authors

William Shakespeare (22)
Sophocles (5)
J. R. R. Tolkien (4)
Heraclitus (3)
Francis Bacon (3)
Jane Austen (2)
George R. R. Martin (2)
Ralph Waldo Emerson (2)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (2)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (2)
Lao Tzu (2)
Michel de Montaigne (2)
Niccolò Machiavelli (2)
Oscar Wilde (1)
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1)
Mark Twain (1)
Lewis Carroll (1)
Herman Melville (1)
John Green (1)
Charles Dickens (1)

Related sources

Antigone (5)
As You Like It (4)
Richard II (3)
On Nature (3)
The Essays of Francis Bacon (3)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (2)
Henry IV, Part 2 (2)
A Game of Thrones (2)
Tao Te Ching (2)
The Essays of Michel de Montaigne (2)
The Prince (2)
The Fellowship of the Ring (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
Hamlet (1)
Twelfth Night (1)
The Two Gentlemen of Verona (1)
The Merchant of Venice (1)
King Lear (1)
Richard III (1)
The Importance of Being Earnest (1)

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William Shakespeare quotes about wisdom