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We are the wise. Do not envy usโ We who are too wise to draw near the fire Lest we get burned; We who are too wise to love Lest love should vanish and we be hurt. We are the wise. Do not envy us our wisdomโ We who are too wise to live Lest we should die.
Lois DuncanWise leaders generally have wise counselors because it takes a wise person themselves to distinguish them.
DiogenesWhat the essential difference between man and woman is, that they should be thus attracted to one another, no one has satisfactorily answered. Perhaps we must acknowledge the justness of the distinction which assigns to man the sphere of wisdom, and to woman that of love, though neither belongs exclusively to either. Man is continually saying to woman, Why will you not be more wise? Woman is continually saying to man, Why will you not be more loving? It is not in their wills to be wise or to be loving; but, unless each is both wise and loving, there can be neither wisdom nor love.
Henry David ThoreauWhen we looked at the life cycle in our 40s, we looked to old people for wisdom. At 80, though, we look at other 80-year-olds to see who got wise and who not. Lots of old people don't get wise, but you don't get wise unless you age.
Erik EriksonBed and Breakfasts are really, really hard to run. You're the first one up and the last one to go to bed. You know, it really tested our strength. We became stronger from it - the whole experience from, you know, learning about it, sort of investing wise - money-wise, business-wise and then just pushing yourself. You know, it takes a lot of work to run a Bed and Breakfast. And then with a brand new baby, it triples.
Dean McDermottMuch has been said of the loneliness of wisdom, and how much the Truth seeker becomes a pilgrim wandering from star to star. To the ignorant, the wise man is lonely because he abides in distant heights of the mind. But the wise man himself does not feel lonely. Wisdom brings him nearer to life; closer to the heart of the world than the foolish man can ever be. Bookishness may lead to loneliness, and scholarship may end in a battle of beliefs, but the wise man gazing off into space sees not an emptiness, but a space full of life, truth, and law.
Manly HallGnomic wisdom, however, is notoriously polychrome, and proverbs depend for their truth entirely on the occasion they are applied to. Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
George SantayanaO wise humanity, terribly wise humanity! How inscrutable is the civilization where men toil and work and worry their hair gray to get a living and forget to play!
Lin YutangI am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.
William BlakeSuppose 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.
Isaac AsimovI would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise; and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know.
Gilbert K. ChestertonQuick condemnation of all that is not ours, of views with which we disagree, of ideas that do not attract us, is the sign of a narrow mind, of an uncultivated intelligence. Bigotry is always ignorant, and the wise boy, who will become the wise man, tries to understand and to see the truth in ideas with which he does not agree.
Annie BesantA man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher.
Gilbert K. ChestertonWise people listen to wise instruction, especially instruction from the Word of God.
Warren W. WiersbeIn the West the wise are usually thought of as leaders. In the East, the wise are very often though of as followers.
Frederick LenzIt's a wise person, I guess, who knows he's dumb, and an honest person who knows he's a liar. And it's a dumb person, I guess, whose convinced he's wise...-Bob Slocum
Joseph HellerShe hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.
Jane AustenIt is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.
William Whitelaw, 1st Viscount WhitelawBut for the wise, it says in the Bible: when a wise man hears wisdom, he reacts. When a fool hears it, his acts are folly. If you wanna be a fool, help yourself, it's not my problem.
RZAI would say that the West is very young, it's very corrupt. We're not very wise. And I think we're hopeful that there is a place that is ancient and wise and open and filled with light.
Richard GereWise is the one who learns from anotherยดs mistakes. Less wise is the one who learns only from his own mistakes. The fool keeps making the same mistakes again and again and never learns from them.
Sri Sri Ravi ShankarNoble and wise men once believed in the music of the spheres: noble and wise men still continue to believe in the "moral significance of existence." But one day even this sphere-music will no longer be audible to them! They will wake up and take note that their ears were dreaming.
Friedrich NietzscheNIRVANA- In the Buddhist religion, a state of pleasurable annihilation awarded to the wise, particularly to those wise enough to understand it.
Ambrose BierceA God wise enough to create me and the world I live in is wise enough to watch out for me.
Philip YanceyModerately wise each one should be, Not overwise, for a wise man's heart Is seldom glad (Norse Wisdom)
Edith HamiltonThe sot drinks, and is drunken: the coward drinks not, and shivers: the wise man, brave and free, drinks, and gives glory to the Most High God.
Aleister CrowleyBeing wise doth either make men our friends or discourage them from being our enemies.
George Savile, 1st Marquess of HalifaxRHETORIC The art of making life less believable; the calculated use of language, not to alarm but to do full harm to our busy minds and properly dispose our listeners to a pain they have never dreamed of. The context of what can be known establishes that love and indifference are forms of language, but the wise addition of punctuation allows us to believe that there are other harms - the dash gives the reader the clear signal they are coming.
Ben MarcusIt is necessary to have party organization if we are to have effective and efficient government. The only difference between a mob and a trained army is organization, and the only difference between a disorganized country and one that has the advantage of a wise and sound government is fundamentally a question of organization.
Calvin CoolidgeThis world belongs to the strong, my friend! The ritual of our existence is based on the strong getting stronger by devouring the weak. We must face up to this. No more than right that it should be this way. We must learn to accept it as a law of the natural world. The rabbits accept their role in the ritual and recognize the wolf as the strong. In defense, the rabbit becomes sly and frightened and elusive and he digs holes and hides when the wolf is about. And he endures, he goes on. He knows his place. He most certainly doesn't challenge the wolf to combat. Now, would that be wise? Would it?
Ken KeseyThe affairs of this world are so shifting and depend on so many accidents, that it is hard to form any judgment concerning the future; nay, we see from experience that the forecasts even of the wise almost always turn out false.
Francesco GuicciardiniA wise ruler should rely on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others.
Niccolo MachiavelliA Christian must always be kind, gracious, and wise in order to conquer evil by good.
John of KronstadtLeading with character gives the wise leader clear-cut advantages. They are easier to trust and follow; they honor commitments and promises; their words and behavior match; they are always engaged in and by the world; they are open to "reflective backtalk": they can speak with conviction because they believe in what they are saying...and everyone else knows that. They are comfortable in their own skin. They feel at ease in the spotlight and they enjoy it there. They tend to be more receptive to opportunity and risk.
Warren G. BennisImpossible is the word found only in a fool's dictionary. Wise people create opportunities for themselves and make everything possible.
Napoleon BonaparteAfter I had my son I looked everywhere for a book that might serve as some kind of mirror. I bought so many silly books. Now I see what the problem was: I wanted a book about time-about mortality. I can't think of a writer who is at once so experimentally daring and so rigorously uncompromising as Sarah Manguso. Ongoingness is an incredibly elegant, wise book, and I loved it.
Miranda July