Quotes About Wisdom

Good books replace the best universities.

Criticism should not be querulous and wasting, all knife and root-pulling, but guiding, instructive, and inspirational--a south wind and not an east wind.

Do not be an unwise churl and rail at society nor so worldly wise as to condemn solitude. But use them as conditions. Be their master, not their slave. Make circumstance,—all circumstance, conform to the law of your mind. Be always a king, and not they, and nothing shall hurt you.

Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles.

He who is not everyday conquering some fear has not learned the secret of life

These Norsemen are excellent persons in the main, with good sense, steadiness, wise speech, and prompt action. But they have a singular turn for homicide; their chief end of man is to murder or to be murdered;

No puedo recordar todos los libros que he leído, como no puedo recordar todas las comidas que he tomado, aún así, son quienes me han hecho»

The old men are as red as roses, and still handsome. A clear skin, a peach-bloom complexion, and good teeth are found all over the island.

Logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition;

Far otherwise; your silence answers very loud. You have no oracle to utter, and your fellow-men have learned that you cannot help them; for, oracles speak. Doth not wisdom cry, and understanding put forth her voice?

Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts.

Just as studying our place in the vast universe should teach us humility, learning how the smallest of creatures play essential roles in nature's scheme should further instruct our mind and enrich our character. The lessons of nature point the way to wisdom.

I would not be hurried … to underrate the Book. … As the human body can be nourished on any food, though it were boiled grass and the broth of shoes, so the human mind can be fed by any knowledge… I only would say, that it needs a strong head to bear that diet.

We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.

Truths will harmonize; and as for the falsities and mistakes, they will speedily die of themselves.

So far, I've spoken of four major benefits of studying natural science: it sends us outdoors, which aids our health; its discoveries drive invention and manufacturing; it's a way of learning truths about the world; and it points the way to wisdom.

One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom another's folly; as one beholds the same objects from a higher point of view. One man thinks justice consists in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously.

There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours.

I metodi possono essere un milione e più, ma i principi sono pochi. L'uomo che afferra i principi può scegliere con successo i suoi metodi. L'uomo che prova i metodi, ignorando i principi, avrà sicuramente dei problemi.

The wise man in the storm prays to God not for safety from danger, but for deliverance from fear. It is the storm within which endangers him, not the storm without.

That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him

No truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts.

The great-eyed Plato proportioned the lights and shades after the genius of our life.

If I cannot brag of knowing something, then I brag of not knowing it.