Wisdom-Favorite Quotes

A house divided against itself cannot stand.
As our case is new, we must think and act anew.
Be sure you put your feet in the right place, then stand firm.
It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.
Great dreams of great dreamers are always transcended.
Those who cannot work with their hearts achieve but a hollow, half-hearted success that breeds bitterness all around.
No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.
It is easy to be brave at a safe distance.
The smaller the mind, the greater the conceit.
Fine clothes may disguise, but silly words will disclose a fool.
A crust eaten in peace is better than a banquet partaken in anxiety.
Appearances often are deceiving.
The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.
If you place your head in a lion's mouth, then you cannot complain one day if he happens to bite it off.
Instinct is a marvellous thing. It can neither be explained nor ignored.
Good advice is always certain to be ignored, but that's no reason not to give it.
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.
We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.
Every intelligent individual wants to know what makes him tick, and yet is at once fascinated and frustrated by the fact that oneself is the most difficult of all things to know.
Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.
A perfection of means, and confusion of aims, seems to be our main problem.
Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
Intellectuals solve problems, geniuses prevent them.
The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.
Wisdom is not the product of schooling, but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference.
One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
I wanted to change the world. But I have found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself.
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the doors of perception.
Experience is the only prophecy of wise men.
Anywhere you go in the world is what you make of it, not what you read in books.
He that cannot reason is a fool. He that will not is a bigot. He that dare not is a slave.
I've come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy.
The path to success is to take massive, determined action.
If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten.
Wisdom... comes not from age, but from education and learning.
A friend to all is a friend to none
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.
Those who know, do. Those that understand, teach.
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
A single lie destroys a whole reputation of integrity.
Better mad with the rest of the world than wise alone.
Never do anything when you are in a temper, for you will do everything wrong.
Respect yourself if you would have others respect you.
There is always time to add a word, never to withdraw one.
True knowledge lies in knowing how to live.
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.
Work is the price which is paid for reputation.
Everything excellent is as difficult as it is rare.
Desire is the very essence of man.
He alone is free who lives with free consent under the entire guidance of reason.
Peace is not an absence of war, it is a virtue, a state of mind, a disposition for benevolence, confidence, justice.
The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.
Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others.
A precedent embalms a principle.
Man is not the creature of circumstances, Circumstances are the creatures of men.
The absent are never without fault, nor the present without excuse.
Admiration is the daughter of ignorance.
Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other.
Early to bed and early to rise, Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid
Never ruin an apology with an excuse.
A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.
If a man could have half of his wishes, he would double his troubles.
The best way to see Faith is to shut the eye of Reason.
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
The heart has its reasons which reason knows not.
You always admire what you really don't understand.
Kind words don't cost much. Yet they accomplish much.
Man's sensitivity to the little things and insensitivity to the greatest are the signs of a strange disorder.
Don't criticize what you can't understand.
None but ourselves can free our minds.
Judge not unless you judge yourself.
To be one, to be united is a great thing. But to respect the right to be different is maybe even greater.
We thought that we had the answers, it was the questions we had wrong.
Only idiots refuse to change their minds.
Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.
Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.
Adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.
A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
Empty your cup so that it may be filled; become devoid to gain totality.
If you don't want to slip up tomorrow, speak the truth today.
A good teacher protects his pupils from his own influence.
Do not deny the classical approach, simply as a reaction, or you will have created another pattern and trapped yourself there.
Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.
It takes a great man to be a good listener.
Don't expect to build up the weak by pulling down the strong.
Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.
Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.
But the fact that some geniuses were laughed at does not imply that all who are laughed at are geniuses. They laughed at Columbus, they laughed at Fulton, they laughed at the Wright brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.
Do not reveal what you have thought upon doing, but by wise council keep it secret being determined to carry it into execution.
The wise man should restrain his senses like the crane and accomplish his purpose with due knowledge of his place, time and ability.
To kill an error is as good a service as, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact
It is always advisable to perceive clearly our ignorance.
The very essence of instinct is that it's followed independently of reason.
Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.
If you don't like someone's story, write your own.
To me, being an intellectual doesn't mean knowing about intellectual issues; it means taking pleasure in them.
One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.
It has seemed to be more necessary to have regard to the weight of words rather than to their number.
The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.
The object of the superior man is truth.
Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.
I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.
The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, to confess your ignorance.
Learn as though you would never be able to master it; hold it as though you would be in fear of losing it.
When prosperity comes, do not use all of it.
Think no vice so small that you may commit it, and no virtue so small that you may over look it.
Gravity is only the bark of wisdom's tree; but it preserves it
To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.
It is man that makes truth great, not truth that makes man great.
By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is the easiest; and third, by experience, which is the bitterest.
In the practice of tolerance, one's enemy is the best teacher.
Sometimes one creates a dynamic impression by saying something, and sometimes one creates as significant an impression by remaining silent.
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
There are four ways, and only four ways, in which we have contact with the world. We are evaluated and classified by these four contacts: what we do, how we look, what we say, and how we say it.
Fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind.
Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic
Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed possible
The only way to get the best of an argument is to avoid it.
What a man does for others, not what they do for him, gives him immortality.
Wisdom begins at the end.
I mistrust the judgement of every man in a case in which his own wishes are concerned.
In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you.
To a wise and good man the whole earth is his fatherland.
Good means not merely not to do wrong, but rather not to desire to do wrong.
Medicine heals diseases of the body, wisdom frees the soul from passions.
Immoderate desire is the mark of a child, not a man.
It is hard to fight desire; but to control it is the sign of a reasonable man.
Don't raise your voice, improve your argument.
Language is very powerful. Language does not just describe reality. Language creates the reality it describes.
If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
There is an art, or rather a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss.
All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
Stupidity is a talent for misconception.
Science has not yet taught us if madness is or is not the sublimity of the intelligence.
The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?
Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.
Every aquarium will eventually leak.
When playing board-games which involve quizzes etc, you will always know the answers to everyone else's set of questions but never your own.
The one you buy will be the only one that doesn't work.
The more skilled you are at something, the worse you are at it when showing someone.
The first thing you'll have to do, is the last thing you wished.
If you have no problems, then you have no clue to what is going.
If you're happy, don't worry you'll get over it.
Nothing is as easy as it looks.
I have already joined myself in marriage to a husband, namely the kingdom of England.
Better beggar woman and single than Queen and married.
I have no desire to make windows into mens souls
I know I am but mortal and so therewhilst prepare myself for death, whensoever it shall please God to send it.
I have had good experience and trial of this world...I know what it is to be a subject, what to be a sovereign, what to have good neighbours, and sometimes meet evil willers. I have found treason in trust, seen great benefits little regarded.
Don't criticize what you don't understand, son. You never walked in that man's shoes.
It was a melancholy secret that reality can arouse desires but never satisfy them.
It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else.
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me'.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death, and he is no true-story teller who would keep that from you.
He who can destroy a thing, can control a thing.
How often it is that the angry man rages denial of what his inner self is telling him.
It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.
There is nothing more uncommon than common sense.
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Men are not prisoners of fate, but only prisoners of their own minds.
To do great things is difficult, but to command great things is more difficult.
It is not the strength, but the duration, of great sentiments that makes great men.
The lie is a condition of life.
Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
If you don't behave as you believe, you will end by believing as you behave.
Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.
A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents.
Those who can not change their minds can not change anything.
Those who dance are considered insane by those who cannot hear the music.
Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds.
Love make us poets, and the approach of death should make us philosophers.
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.
Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least.
Nothing is so strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength
Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.
Time wounds all heels.
The only real laughter comes from despair.
He who chooses the beginning of the road chooses the place it leads to.
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Tact is the knack of making a point without making an enemy.
Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.
A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true.
Nature is pleased with simplicity. And nature is no dummy
A man is literally what he thinks.
Above all be of single aim; have a legitimate and useful purpose, and devote yourself unreservedly to it.
Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.
No man has any natural authority over his fellow men.
To live is not merely to breathe; it is to act; it is to make use of our organs, senses, faculties - of all those parts of ourselves which give us the feeling of existence
He who is slowest in making a promise is most faithful in its performance.
For we walk by faith, not by sight
Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.
You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.' But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.
If we can really understand the problem, the answer will come out of it, because the answer is not separate from the problem.
The future is uncertain but the end is always near.
Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens
In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first
If we do not lay out ourselves in the service of mankind whom should we serve?
Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak.
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other how to live.
I write with experiences in mind, but I don't write about them, I write out of them.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives.
There's no sense in being precise when you don't even know what you're talking about.
Tomorrow hopes we have learned something from yesterday.
Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
You laugh at me because I'm different, I laugh at you because you're all the same.
Although our intellect always longs for clarity and certainty, our nature often finds uncertainty fascinating.
Courage, above all things, is the first quality of a warrior.
Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value.
Yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.
Generosity is giving more than you can, and pride is taking less than you need.
Tell the truth. Sing with passion. Work with laughter. Love with heart. 'Cause that's all that matters in the end.
He who conquers others is strong; he who conquers himself is mighty.
A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.
As the soft yield of water cleaves obstinate stone, So to yield with life solves the insolvable: To yield, I have learned, is to come back again.
At the center of your being you have the answer; you know who you are and you know what you want.
Great acts are made up of small deeds.
If you would take, you must first give, this is the beginning of intelligence.
Nothing is softer or more flexible than water, yet nothing can resist it.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
The noblest pleasure is the joy of understanding.
Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.
Nothing is more intolerable than to have to admit to yourself your own errors.
It is better to be looked over than overlooked.
If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.
And no one will listen to us until we listen to ourselves.
One never notices what has been done; one can only see what remains to be done.
I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than that.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.
In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.
Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear.
Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.
We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.
Criticize the act, not the person.
I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
When you learn, teach, when you get, give.
Achievement brings its own anticlimax.
All great achievements require time.
Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host. But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.
We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.
Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.
If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.
Nothing fixes a thing so intensely in the memory as the wish to forget it.
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.
Obsession is the wellspring of genius and madness.
Stubborn and ardent clinging to one's opinion is the best proof of stupidity.
It is necessary to keep one's compass in one's eyes and not in the hand, for the hands execute, but the eye judges.
Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.
One who loses wealth loses much. One who loses a friend loses more. But one who loses courage loses all.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.
What you're thinking is what you're becoming.
There are no limitations to the mind except those we acknowledge.
Accuracy is the twin brother of honesty; inaccuracy, of dishonesty.
Time flies over us, but leaves its shadow behind.
We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.
One new feature or fresh take can change everything.
Where you stand depends on where you sit.
One who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
It is not titles that honor men, but men that honor titles.
Our virtues and our failings are inseparable, like force and matter. When they separate, man is no more
We never see ourselves as others see us.
Turn your wounds into wisdom.
Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.
You don't become what you want, you become what you believe
When you undervalue what you do, the world will undervalue who you are
Experience is merely the name men gave to their mistakes.
This is something basic to be understood: the ego must come to a peak, it must be strong, it must have attained an integrity only then can you dissolve it.
In the East, all the religions preach egolessness. So in the East, everybody is against the ego from the very beginning.
So whenever a Western seeker reaches to an understanding that ego is the problem, he can easily dissolve it, more easily than any Eastern seeker.
Your inner world has its own taste, has its own fragrance, has its own light. And it is utterly silent.
Meditation will bring you sensitivity, a great sense of belonging to the world. It is our world - the stars are ours, and we are not foreigners here. We are part of it, we are the heart of it.
And this sensitivity will create new friendships for you - friendships with trees, with birds, with animals, with mountains, with rivers, with oceans, with stars. Life becomes richer as love grows.
If you meditate, sooner or later you will come upon love. If you meditate deeply, sooner or later you will start feeling a tremendous love arising in you that you have never known before.
You want a love which is born out of meditation, not born out of the mind.
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.
Be realistic: Plan for a miracle
My meditation is simple. It does not require any complex practices. It is simple. It is singing. It is dancing. It is sitting silently.
Nobody has the power to take two steps together; you can take only one step at a time.
Creativity is the greatest rebellion in existence.
You don't want to lose your old friend - the misery - You have invested too much into false - Hence the fear to be exposed -to be true - to be naked as you are.
If you are a parent, open doors to unknown directions to the child so he can explore. Don't make him afraid of the unknown,give him support.
One just needs a little alertness to see and find out: Life is really a great cosmic laughter.
It's not a question of learning much.On the contrary.It's a question of UNLEARNING much.
Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.
Those who see the invisible can do the impossible.
Think globally, act locally.
The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.
The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
The ethos of redemption is realized in self-mastery, by means of temperance, that is, continence of desires.
The greatest of wealth is the richness of the soul.
There is geometry in the humming of the strings. There is music in the spacing of the spheres.
Rest satisfied with doing well, and leave others to talk of you as they please.
Be silent or let thy words be worth more than silence.
Do not say a little in many words, but a great deal in few!
The oldest, shortest words- 'yes' and 'no'- are those which require the most thought.
Choose rather to be strong of soul than strong of body.
In anger we should refrain both from speech and action.
Anger begins in folly, and ends in repentance.
A proverb is much matter distilled into few words.
How often I found where I should be going only by setting out for somewhere else.
I think, therefore I am.
The greatest minds are capable of the greatest vices as well as of the greatest virtues.
It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well.
Doubt is the origin of wisdom
Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.
A mistake is always forgivable, rarely excusable and always unacceptable.
Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.
Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got nothing to lose.
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
Most of what matters in our lives takes place in our absence.
What's real and what's true aren't necessarily the same.
What can't be cured must be endured.
It is tact that is golden, not silence.
The experience gathered from books, though often valuable,is but the nature of learning whereas the experience gained from actual life is of the nature of wisdom.
If we know exactly where we're going, exactly how to get there, and exactly what we'll see along the way, we won't learn anything.
You cannot truly listen to anyone and do anything else at the same time.
Share our similarities, celebrate our differences.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.
Let him who would move the world first move himself.
One must wait until the evening to see how splendid the day has been.
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.
Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.
Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
I am a lover of truth, a worshipper of freedom, a celebrant at the altar of language and purity and tolerance.
It is a cliche that most cliches are true, but then like most cliches, that cliche is untrue.
Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.
The place where you made your stand never mattered. Only that you were there...and still on your feet.
Energy may be likened to the bending of a crossbow; decision,to the releasing of a trigger.
Desire is poverty. Desire is the greatest impurity of the mind. Desire is the motive force for action. Desire in the mind is the real impurity. Even a spark of desire is a very great evil.
If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.
It is divinity that shapes, not only your ends, but also your acts, your words and thoughts.
Desire, ignorance, and inequality—this is the trinity of bondage.
Learning and wisdom are superfluities, the surface glitter merely, but it is the heart that is the seat of all power.
All differences in this world are of degree, and not of kind, because oneness is the secret of everything.
Intelligence is a moral category.
Wrong life cannot be lived rightly.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.
No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care
Whatever the mind of man creates, should be controlled by man's character
Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
Never put off for tomorrow, what you can do today.
Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice.
An intelligent hell would be better than a stupid paradise.
Common sense is in spite of, not as the result of education.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.
Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later, the man who wins is the man who thinks he can.
Take care of the pieces well. The whole will take care of itself.
If you buy what you do not need, you will need what you cannot buy.
Destiny is not a passive agent that lies in the lap of the Gods, but is an active instrument that lies in your own hands to shape as you will.
A person who spends more than he earns is a fool
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
Resist much. Obey little.
Be curious, not judgmental.
When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.
Circumstances do not make a man, they reveal him.
When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It's to enjoy each step along the way.
You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.
If you don't know where you're from, you'll have a hard time saying where you're going.
We learn from our gardens to deal with the most urgent question of the time: How much is enough?
Men become wise just as they become rich, more by what they save than by what they receive.
Everybody is ignorant, only on different subjects.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
What's done can't be undone.
It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
All the great things are simple, and many can be expressed in a single word: freedom; justice; honor; duty; mercy; hope.
All imperfection is easier to tolerate if served up in small doses.
The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you think you can only do a little
Attitude, not Aptitude, determines Altitude.

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