Quotes About Wisdom

Dying Speech of an Old Philosopher I strove with none, for none was worth my strife. Nature I loved, and, next to Nature, Art: I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks; and I am ready to depart.

There is a southern proverb—fine words butter no parsnips.

I have heard men talk about the blessings of freedom," he said to himself, "but I wish any wise man would teach me what use to make of it now that I have it.

Judgment comes from experience - and experience comes from bad judgment.

Aller werdekeit ein füegerinne daz sît ir zewâre, frowe Mâze. ein sælig man, der iuwer lêre hât!

All God's children are deserving of His love. He doesn't always give us everything we ask for, but He does give us what He knows is best for us.

Err on the side of caution

In this place you can become the person you want to be. Anything can be gotten from books. In books there are rooms of gold, in books there is jadelike beauty.

No one alone can attain truth.

socrates. There's one proposition that I'd defend to the death, if I could, by argument and by action: that as long as we think we should search for what we don't know, we'll be better people—less faint-hearted and less lazy—than if we were to think that we had no chance of discovering what we don't know and that there's no point in even searching for it. Meno 86bc

If we treat Socrates as an internalized feature of the mind, then this is its first and constant order of business: uprooting false conceits of knowledge.

Aporia can not only prepare you to learn but make you want to learn.4 It feels frustrating. In effect Socrates says: good—now get going on the search for an answer, this time with a better sense of the work it takes. You are made hungry for knowledge by discovering how little you have.

If you would attain real freedom, you must be the slave of philosophy. Epicurus, quoted in Seneca, Epistles 8.7

socrates. Renouncing the honors at which the world aims, I desire only to know the truth, and to live as well as I can, and, when I die, to die as well as I can. And, to the utmost of my power, I exhort all other men to do the same. Gorgias 526de

Stoic needs a good sense of humor.

You ask what the finest life span would be? To live until you reach wisdom.

On a Socratic view it's never time to give up. We do better by accepting that the search probably has no end but going on anyway as if it might. For even if you can't possess the truth, you can get closer to it.

Of this I am quite sure, that if we open a quarrel between the past and the present, we shall find that we have lost the future. Churchill, speech in the House of Commons (1940)

When a steadfast mind knows that there is no difference between a day and an age, whatever the days or events that may come, then it can look out from the heights and laugh as it reflects on the succession of the ages. Seneca, Epistles 101.9

Axel smiled. "They say that good judgment comes from experience. And experience come from bad judgment." Alec laughed...

It appears that so-called common sense is a most uncommon commodity nowadays.

It also helps to have a wide base of knowledge on all sorts of things that might seem to be unrelated to the problem—the more eclectic your storehouse of information, the more possibilities for unexpected connections.

Always the beautiful answer Who asks a more beautiful question. —E.E. Cummings

What do you want to say? Why does it need to be said