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.