Quotes About Wisdom

Moral indignation is a bad counsellor.

Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

You'll try to reveal what should remain hidden, you'll try to incite people to learn from the past and rebel, but they will refuse to believe you. They will not listen to you…. You'll possess the truth, you already do; but it's the truth of a madman.

There is divine beauty in learning, just as there is human beauty in tolerance. To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

There is divine beauty in learning... To learn means to accept the postulate that life did not begin at my birth. Others have been here before me, and I walk in their footsteps. The books I have read were composed by generations of fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, teachers and disciples. I am the sum total of their experiences, their quests. And so are you.

I didn't care about truth; I cared about beauty. It took me many years--it took the experience of lived time--to realize that they really are the same thing.

If I could start over today, I would choose literature again. If the answers exist in the world or in the universe, I still think that's where we're going to find them.

How could a thirteenth-century person have written such things? If you want what visible reality can give, you are an employee. On the other hand, why couldn't Rumi have said that?

As a rule, though, never underestimate our capacity not to learn from our mistakes.

Blessed are those who have eaten from the bread of love which is Jesus. This is the wine that gladdens human hearts. This is the wine which the lustful have drunk and they have become chaste, the sinners and they forgot the ways of unrighteousness, the drunkards and they became fasters, the rich and they became desirous of poverty, the poor and they became rich in hope, the sick and they became courageous, the fools and they became wise. Mystical Treatises, St. Isaac the Syrian, 7th Century

Here is a quick and generally reliable rule to follow. If people have always said it, it is probably true; it is the distilled wisdom of the ages. If people have not always said it, but everybody is saying it now, it is probably a lie; it is the concentrated madness of the moment. People

Every single pagan philosopher of the ancient world said that if you wanted to be free, you had to learn the hard ways of virtue and that the worst form of slavery was slavery to your own appetites.

To measure up takes skill, but to err is an art.

The price of maturity is exorbitant these days. Paying for wisdom with money is one thing, but when time becomes the currency, it's your life at stake.

Those who do not preach life but live it do not smile to the lily near the bank; they look for stones and hang on.

There is nothing more blinding than having seen the light, and nothing more tiresome than sharing it.

Wisdom doesn't come only from the experience you have had, but from the experience you have chosen not to have.

We are all born wise. Unfortunately, we all don't die that way.

We are not born with a need for knowledge, but a hunger for it. Eve bit the apple and it has been gluttony ever since.

No philosopher was ever apathetic. If there is no love, it is not philosophy.

Those who take thinking seriously have a serious problem—ignorance and arrogance commingle.

Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.

Let fear be a counselor and not a jailer.

Success in life is the result of good judgment. Good judgment is usually the result of experience. Experience is usually the result of bad judgment.