Quotes About Wisdom

Some people will say that memory fades away as the years pass. Of course it does if you don't exercise it or aren't very bright to begin with. -- How to grow old: ancient wisdom for the second half of life.

For as I like a man in whom there is something of the old, so I like a man in whom there is something of the young; and he who follows this maxim, in body will possibly be an old man but he will never be an old man in mind.

If you have a library in your garden, everything will be complete.

It's not by strength or speed or swiftness of body that great deeds are done, but by wisdom, character, and sober judgment.

Ein Raum ohne Bücher ist wie ein Körper ohne Seele.

For the whole life of a philosopher is, as the same philosopher says, a meditation on death.

It is strong proof of men knowing things before birth, that when mere children they grasp innumerable facts with such speed as to show that they are not then taking them in for the first time, but are remembering and recalling them.

But if I am wrong in thinking the human soul immortal, I am glad to be wrong; nor will I allow the mistake which gives me so much pleasure to be wrested from me as long as I live.

No one can be a sound judge if he does not give due weight to convincing suspicions.

As I give thought to the matter, I find four causes for the apparent misery of old age; first it withdraws us from active accomplishments; second, it renders the body less powerful; third, it deprives us of almost all forms of enjoyment; fourth, it stands not far from death.

The purpose of education is to free the student from the tyranny of the present.

Nescire autem quid antequam natus sis acciderit, id est semper esse puerum.

non deterret sapientem mors.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

Si hortum in bibliotheca habes, nihil deerit. (If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.)

There is nothing so absurd that some philosopher has not already said it.

Utinam tam facile vera invenire possim quam falsa convincere.

Loquor enim de docto homine et erudito, cui vivere est cogitare

a distinction has gradually sprung up between what is expedient and what is right. But the implication that something can be right without being expedient, or expedient without being right, is the most pernicious error that could possibly be introduced into human life.

Marcus Tullius Cicero

And so—it can't be repeated often enough—you should love after you have judged, not judge after you have loved.

User de ce qu'on a, et agir en tout selon ses forces, telle est la règle du sage.

O vitae Philosophia dux! O virtutum indagatrix expultrixque vitiorum! Unus dies, bene et ex praeceptis tuis actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.

Nothing that is devoid of justice can be honorable. It was well said by Plato: "Not only is knowledge, when divorced from justice, to be termed subtlety rather than wisdom; but also the soul prompt to encounter danger, if moved thereto by self-interest, and not by the common good, should have the reputation of audacity rather than of courage.