Quotes About Wise

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise - even in their own field.

Much 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.

I endeavor to drink deep of philosophy, and to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended, and patient where there is no redress. The mighty can do no more, and the wise seldom do as much. ... I am resolved to make the best of all circumstances around me, that this short life may not be half lost in pains ... Between the periods of birth and burial, I would fain insert a little happiness, a little pleasure, a little peace: to-day is ours, yesterday is past, and to-morrow may never come.

Love works in miracles every day: such as weakening the strong, and stretching the weak; making fools of the wise, and wise men of fools; favouring the passions, destroying reason, and in a word, turning everything topsy-turvy.

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.

Time cannot be recycled. When a moment has gone, it is really gone. Wise time management is really wise management of ourselves.

Anarchism is founded on the observation that since few men are wise enough to rule themselves, even fewer are wise enough to rule others.

Where wise actions are the fruit of life, wise discourse is the pollination.

That wise Men have in all Ages thought Government necessary for the Good of Mankind; and, that wise Governments have always thought Religion necessary for the well ordering and well-being of Society, and accordingly have been ever careful to encourage and protect the Ministers of it, paying them the highest publick Honours, that their Doctrines might thereby meet with the greater Respect among the common People.

The busy man is never wise and the wise man is never busy.

In the West the wise are usually thought of as leaders. In the East, the wise are very often though of as followers.

It'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

Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.

I 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.

I don't really know the person who wrote the things I wrote. I kind of know him, but I change so much all the time that it's like I start fresh over and over and over and over. Writing-wise and life-wise.

It is possible that a wise and good man may be prevailed on to game; but it is impossi∣ble that a professed gamester should be a wise and good man.

Not only were the Jews expecting the birth of a Great King, a Wise Man and a Saviour, but Plato and Socrates also spoke of the Logos and of the Universal Wise Man 'yet to come'. Confucius spoke of 'the Saint'; the Sibyls, of a 'Universal King'; the Greek dramatist, of a saviour and redeemer to unloose man from the 'primal eldest curse'. All these were on the Gentile side of the expectation. What separates Christ from all men is that first He was expected; even the Gentiles had a longing for a deliverer, or redeemer. This fact alone distinguishes Him from all other religious leaders.

History never recorded this phrase: 'The Mass of Wise.' Because the wise is not too abundant to form masses!

We are wise, wise women. We are giggling girls.

A person is not learned nor wise because he talks much; the person who is patient, free from hatred and fear, that person is called learned and wise.

... you must hasten to oppose pernicious pride of mind, before it penetrates into the marrow of your bones. Resist it, curb the quickness of your mind and humbly subject your opinion to the opinions of others. Be a fool for the love of God, if you wish to be wiser than Solomon: 'If any man among you seem to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise' (I Cor. 3:18).

RHETORIC 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.

God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools...and He has not been disappointed....If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage to suffer the contempt of the sophisticated world.

Performance-wise, you really need to be down in the trenches; you need to do the hard work, for a lot of reasons: To build yourself as a performer, to get a sense of the audience, to work hard and to wonder, 'Do I really want to do this?'

Much certainly of the happiness and purity of our lives depends on our making a wise choice of our companions and friends. If our friends are badly chosen they will inevitably drag us down; if well they will raise us up.

[When we drop our agendas] we begin to cultivate a mind of true goodness and compassion, which comes out of a concern for the Whole. As we live out of such a mind, we become generous, with no sense of giving or of making a sacrifice. We become open, with no sense of tolerance. We become patient, with no sense of putting up with anything. We become compassionate, with no sense of separation. And we become wise, with no sense of having to straighten anyone out.

But if you'll prosper, mark what I advise, Whom age, and long experience render wise.

There are three marks of a superior man: being virtuous, he is free from anxiety; being wise, he is free from perplexity; being brave, he is free from fear.

God himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man, and sits enthroned in yonder heavens! That is the great secret.... It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the Character of God, and to know... that he was once a man like us.... Here, then, is eternal life - to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves... the same as all Gods have done before you.

To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.

I am enormously wise and abysmally ignorant.

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

If Putin and those around him had been smart enough to go in a different direction... The country was ready. The conditions were extremely favorable - with oil prices as high as they were, it was possible to do anything. It was possible to solidify democracy. After the Yeltsin years people began to think that democracy is a disaster, that democracy equals misery. Putin got a lucky break - and he used it the KGB way. He turned out to be a wily KGB man, not a wise statesman.

Justice in the individual is now defined analogously to justice in the state. The individual is wise and brave in virtue of his reason and spirit respectively: he is disciplined when spirit and appetite are in proper subordination to reason. He is just in virtue of the harmony which exists when all three elements of the mind perform their proper function and so achieve their proper fulfillment; he is unjust when no such harmony exists.

There are plenty of fools in the world; but if they had not been sent for some wise purpose, they wouldn't have been here; and since they are here they have as good a right to have elbow-room in the world as the wisest.

Death is a woman, and for that reason she's courageous and just, and never makes distinctions between mortals; she'll crush the ignorant, the arrogant, and the wise alike under her icy foot.

Strange star-like object over Oslo right before Obama arrives. A gift of a golden medal given by a group of wise men... Nah.

I was a bit of a Victorian Lady, fainting-wise.

Never try to sell at the top. It isn't wise. Sell after a reaction if there is no rally.

A wasted youth is better by far than a wise and productive old age.

Wise are they who have learned these truths: Trouble is temporary. Time is tonic. Tribulation is a test tube.

Fortune seldom troubles the wise man. Reason has controlled his greatest and most important affairs, controls them throughout his life, and will continue to control them.

The wise man contents himself with what he has, until such time as he invents something better.

The truly generous is the truly wise, and he who loves not others lives unblest!

A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.

Is it not manifest that our academic institutions should have a wider scope; that they should not be timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innovation, should dare to arouse the young to a just and heroic life; that the moral nature should be addressed in the school-room, and children should be treated as the high-born candidates of truth and virtue?

A wise traveller never despises his own country.