991 quotes
It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.
Winston Churchill
Statesman · English · 1874 – 1965
There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.
William Hazlitt
Critic · English · 1778 – 1830
For this is the mark of a wise and upright man, not to rail against the gods in misfortune.
Aeschylus
Poet · Greek
The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
H. L. Mencken
Writer · American · 1880 – 1956
A wise man does not chatter with one whose mind is sick.
Sophocles
He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.
Evelyn Waugh
Author · English · 1903 – 1966
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
Statesman · Roman
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Poet · American · 1803 – 1882
Doubt is the vestibule through which all must pass before they can enter into the temple of wisdom.
Charles Caleb Colton
Writer · English
Is there anyone so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
Voltaire
Writer · French · 1694 – 1778
A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.
Niccolo Machiavelli
Writer · Italian · 1469 – 1527
In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.
Ansel Adams
Photographer · American · 1902 – 1984
In the long-run every Government is the exact symbol of its People, with their wisdom and unwisdom; we have to say, Like People like Government.
Thomas Carlyle
Philosopher · Scottish · 1795 – 1881
The mind that is wise mourns less for what age takes away; than what it leaves behind.
William Wordsworth
Poet · English · 1770 – 1850
You're a wise person if you can easily direct your attention to what ever needs it.
Terence
Writer · Roman
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Samuel Johnson
Author · English · 1709 – 1784
To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.
Marilyn vos Savant
Writer · American · b. 1946
It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
Mohandas Gandhi
Leader · Indian · 1869 – 1948
Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.
The well bred contradict other people. The wise contradict themselves.
Oscar Wilde
Dramatist · Irish · 1854 – 1900
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Experience - the wisdom that enables us to recognise in an undesirable old acquaintance the folly that we have already embraced.
Ambrose Bierce
Journalist · American · b. 1842
Moderation is the inseparable companion of wisdom, but with it genius has not even a nodding acquaintance.
The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom.
Stephen Gardiner
Architect · British · 1924 – 2007
Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish.
Albert Einstein
Physicist · German · 1879 – 1955
Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.
William Butler Yeats
Poet · Irish · 1865 – 1939
Men who know themselves are no longer fools. They stand on the threshold of the door of Wisdom.
Henry Ellis
Psychologist · British · b. 1859
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
Naguib Mahfouz
Novelist · Egyptian · 1911 – 2006
Poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand.
Plato
Philosopher · Greek
Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.
Thomas B. Macaulay
Historian · English
We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.
Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Writer · French · 1613 – 1680
Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.
William Cowper
Poet · English · 1731 – 1800
The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Philosopher · German · 1788 – 1860
Wisdom stands at the turn in the road and calls upon us publicly, but we consider it false and despise its adherents.
Khalil Gibran
Poet · 1883 – 1931
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.
Adlai E. Stevenson
Politician · American · 1900 – 1965
The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep.
Edgar Watson Howe
Editor · American · 1853 – 1937
Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.
John Cheever
Writer · American · 1912 – 1982
The left has come to regard common sense - the traditional wisdom and folkways of the community - as an obstacle to progress and enlightenment.
Christopher Lasch
Historian · American · 1932 – 1994
It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau
Author · American · 1817 – 1862
He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.
William Penn
Leader · English · 1644 – 1718
The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve.
Buddha
Leader
The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.
William Faulkner
Novelist · American · 1897 – 1962
We may simply not be wise enough to do some of the kinds of engineering things that people are talking about doing.
Leon Kass
Educator · American · b. 1939
It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.
Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power.
It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods.
The American people may not be the best-educated, but they're very wise at heart.
Norman Lear
Producer · American · b. 1922
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George Santayana
Philosopher · American · 1863 – 1952
