Quotes About Wisdom

The size of a man's understanding may always be justly measured by his mirth.

There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.

Angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

When a king asked Euclid, the mathematician, whether he could not explain his art to him in a more compendious manner? he was answered, that there was no royal way to geometry.

what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.

People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making of shoes by lectures!

There is no matter what children should learn first, any more than what leg you should put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the meantime your backside is bare. Sire, while you stand considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learn't 'em both.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a public library.

Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

ACROAMATICAL  (ACROAMA'TICAL)   adj.[   Gr. I bear.]Of or pertaining to deep learning; the opposite of exoterical.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,Which like the toad, ugly and venomous,Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.Shak.As you like it. Concerning deliverance itself from all adversity

A books should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.

His genius was belowThe skill of ev'ry common beau;Who, tho' he cannot spell, is wiseEnough to read a lady's eyes;And will each accidental glanceInterpret for a kind advance.Swift'sMiscell.

Those who take little thought find it easy to pronounce an opinion. - On Optimism

All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.

APOPHTHEGM  (A'POPHTHEGM)   n.s. remarkable saying; a valuable maxim uttered on some sudden occasion.

Sir," said Imlac, "my history will not be long: the life that is devoted to knowledge passes silently away, and is very little diversified by events.

ABLEPSY  (A'BLEPSY)   n.s.[   Gr.] Want of sight, natural blindness; also unadvisedness.Dict.

ABOUT  (ABO'UT)   prep.[abutan, or abuton, Sax. which seems to signify encircling on the outside.]1. Round, surrounding, encircling. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee. Bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thy heart.BibleProverbs,iii. 3.

He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.

The triumph of hope over experience.