Quotes About Wisdom

We learn about life not from plusses alone, but from minuses as well.

God, help me. Help me to be wise and full of courage and sound judgment. Harden my heart to the sights that I must see so soon again, grant me only the power to think clearly, boldly, resolutely, no matter how unnerving the peril. Let me not fail them.

You a Catholic, Harry?" O'Neill asked. "I was. Can't see it any more." "You know something?" O'Neill offered after a pause. "Religion is for punks and old folks. When you're a punk you need it because you don't know any better and it straightens you up. And when you're old you need it for comfort before you check out. But in between it's no good.

It is unfortunate that we try to solve the simplest questions cleverly, and therefore make them unusually complicated. We should seek a simple solution.

You ask What is life? That is the same as asking What is a carrot? A carrot is a carrot and we know nothing more.

Everything is good in due measure and strong sensations know not measure.

There are people whom even childrens literature would corrupt. They read with particular enjoyment the piquant passages in the Psalter and in the Wisdom of Solomon.

Better to perish from fools than to accept praises from them.

It is a poor thing for the writer to take on that which he doesnt understand.

The more simply we look at ticklish questions, the more placid will be our lives and relationships.

A nadie le vino la cordura antes que la insensatez. LUCIO ANNEO SÉNECA

difícilmente los tontos son del todo buenos. Y lo peor es que los inteligentes difícilmente lo quieren ser».

I have seen all, I have heard all, I have forgotten all." - Marie Antoinette

In this way we will be reminded of their true nature and come to a more 'objective' judgement. It is, Marcus says, like: 'seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Or that this noble vintage is grape juice, and the purple robes are sheep wool dyed with shellfish blood. Or making love – something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.

One of the most quoted Stoic sayings must surely be Epictetus' (which we first encountered on p. 39): 'People are disturbed not by things, but by the views they take of things.

On the question of speaking, Stoics and Buddhists are at one. In Epictetus' words: 'Be mostly silent, or speak merely when necessary, and in few words. We may enter sparingly into conversation sometimes, when the occasion calls for it; but not about any of the common subjects, such as gladiators, or horse races, or athletic champions, or food, or drink – the vulgar topics of conversation; and especially not about individuals, either to blame, or praise, or make comparisons.

One discourse celebrates detachment with the image of a rhinoceros: 'One whose mind is enmeshed in sympathy for friends and companions, neglects the true goal. Seeing this danger in intimacy, wander alone like a rhinoceros. … As a deer in the wilds, unfettered, goes for forage wherever it wants: the wise person, valuing freedom, wanders alone like a rhinoceros.

Counterintuitive though it may sound, joy can also arise from properly understanding impermanence. The Buddha says: 'When, by knowing the impermanence, change, fading away, and cessation of forms, one sees … with proper wisdom that forms … are all impermanent, suffering, and subject to change, joy arises.

Taking our knowledge to heart and really living it, however, can be difficult, as Seneca illustrated with a literally colourful analogy: 'Just as some dyes are readily absorbed by the wool, others only after repeated soaking and simmering, so there are some studies that show up well in our minds as soon as we have learned them; this one, though, must permeate us thoroughly. It must soak in, giving not just a tinge of color but a real deep dye, or it cannot deliver on any of its promises.

Seneca says: 'if we are situated in the midst of a noisy city, let there be a preceptor at our side to contradict those who laud vast incomes and to praise instead the man who is wealthy on little and who measures wealth by how it is used.

Everybody knew everything now. Or did everybody know nothing? Nobody knew anything... Nobody could know everything.

There are fewer answers in the world than questions, and if you ask me now why that is so, I must tell you that there is no answer to that question.

Anyone who worked with him will recall the moment when his face softened into a knowing smile. It was the moment he thought he had the answer. That smile was the same smile he wore when he wrote an opinion that wrote itself. He loved the truth, and his smile betrayed the peace and joy he found in its pursuit.

God assumed from the beginning that the wise of the world would view Christians as fools...and He has not been disappointed.