Quotes About Wisdom

We know accurately only when we know little; doubt grows with knowledge.

We are never deceived; we deceive ourselves.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The intelligent man finds everything laughable, the sensible man hardly anything.

Faust: Who holds the devil, let him hold him well, He hardly will be caught a second time.

Was ich weiß, kann jeder wissen. Mein Herz hab' ich allein.

We all of us live upon the past, and through the past we are destroyed.

I see my discourse leaves you cold; Dear kids, I do not take offense; Recall: the Devil, he is old, Grow old yourselves, and he'll make sense!

But who will dare to speak the truth out clear? The few who anything of truth have learned, And foolishly did not keep truth concealed, Their thoughts and visions to the common herd revealed, Since time began we've crucified and burned

It is in vain that a man of sound mind and cool temper understands the condition of such a wretched being... He can no more communicate his own wisdom to him than a healthy man can instil his strength into the invalid by whose bedside he is seated.

A clever man commits no minor blunders.

The more one knows, the more one comprehends, the more one realizes that everything turns in a circle.

Divide and rule, the politician cries; Unite and lead, is watchword of the wise.

The really unhappy person is the one who leaves undone what they can do, and starts doing what they don't understand; no wonder they come to grief.

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.

Whatever you cannot understand, you cannot possess.

Say what you will of fortitude, but show me the man who can patiently endure the laughter of fools when they have obtained an advantage over him. 'Tis only when their nonsense is without foundation that one can suffer it without complaint.

Yes - this I hold to with devout insistence, Wisdom's last verdict goes to say: He only earns both freedom and existence Who must reconquer them each day.

I've studied now Philosophy And Jurisprudence, Medicine,— And even, alas! Theology,— From end to end, with labor keen; And here, poor fool! with all my lore I stand, no wiser than before:

One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.

I mean now to try and see her as soon as I can: or perhaps, on second thoughts, I had better not; it is better I should behold her through the eyes of her lover. To my sight, perhaps, she would not appear as she now stands before me; and why should I destroy so sweet a picture?

Fools and wise-folk are alike harmless. It is the half-wise, and the half-foolish, who are the most dangerous.

One should not search for anything behind the phenomena. They themselves are the message.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe