Quotes About Wisdom

Self-knowledge is not sold on the Rialto. And if it were, few people would buy.

Fools make news, and wise men carry it.

Nine-tenths of every attack is bluff. The art is to know when to call it.

Mr Blyth, you should remember one thing. A celibate island life fighting Turks is no particular guarantee of early maturity. Take a little crone-like advice, and don't rush your judgements.

A man of over thirty might be held to be at the height of his powers, but not necessarily of his wisdom.

Some day, I must take my own prolific advice and contrive to drop dead.

Age can mellow, they say.' 'They say wrong,' said Diccon Chancellor. 'I have known Mistress Philippa these two months, and I have aged while she has grown daily less mellow. Why else am I fleeing the country?

You choose to play God, and the Deity points out that the post is already adequately filled.

There is a Russian proverb,' Nepeja said. 'Beat your shuba, and it will be warmer; beat your wife and she shall be sweeter.' There was a brief silence, while his hearers considered the analogy. 'Beat your brother and he shall be deader?' at length Danny said.

I see,' said Jerott slowly. 'You've thought it all out.' 'That's what I do,' said Lymond. 'I sit on my brood-patch and think.

Elephants gave you less bother, any day.

I have been taught to face reality: an excellent thing.

In order to rule, one must face reality.

Your blasted Nanny should have taught you what mine did,' said Lymond. 'The things you enjoy most aren't good for you.

I once heard a man speak, who had understanding, and the promise of vision. He was called the Master of Culter.

Are you mourning? Seneca says a wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can. You should be pleased. At last Francis has managed to follow his own misguided path without the rest of us consuming time and energy on setting him right.

I think you might come to forget, too, that life is more than a science.

Now she was wiser. In this brief and dizzying apprenticeship, she had started to realize that, whatever his occupation, Lymond's life was lived on this level: the level on which the future of whole communities could be steered or reshaped, improved or jeopardized by a handful of people.

So,' said Mary, 'you would condemn the human race to hell, for want of enlightenment?' 'Why not?' said Francis Crawford. 'It has nothing to fear, surely, from hell.

He did not want to live. As the condition of life does, so the condition of death should depend on one's choice. The wise man lives as long as he ought, not as long as he can. Democrites fell on his sword; Aruntius killed himself to fly both the past and the future; Crates said that love would be cured by hunger, if not by time; and whoever disliked these two remedies, by a rope.

Nostradamus said, according to Archie, that the Gods sell the goods that they give us. We had been shown a fine instrument. But the bow could be overlong bent; the harp lose its voice if its strings were not loosened.' 'I hope he said so in Francis's hearing. Poor Archie,' said Marthe. 'Did he say what should be loosened? His morals?

Men live, not while they breathe, but while they live well.

I had no expectations,' Philippa said. The tears stood still on her face. 'This is one lesson I know by heart already.

You will have power and wealth, but what are these to a scholar? You will end your life an oasis in a desert of ignorance.