Quotes About Wisdom

Nothing doth more hurt in a state, than that cunning men pass for wise.

The example of God, teacheth the lesson truly.

Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced.

The human understanding is like a false mirror, which, receiving rays irregularly, distorts and discolors the nature of things by mingling its own nature with it.

And let a man beware, how he keepeth company with choleric and quarrelsome persons; for they will engage him into their own quarrels.

To take advice of some few friends, is ever honorable; for lookers-on many times see more than gamesters; and the vale best discovereth the hill.

That which is past is gone and irrevocable, and wise men have enough to do with things present and to come.

The wisdom of conversation ought not to be over much affected, but much less despised; for it hath not only an honour in itself, but an influence also into business and government.

Counsellors are not commonly so united, but that one counsellor, keepeth sentinel over another; so that if any do counsel out of faction or private ends, it commonly comes to the king's ear. But the best remedy is, if princes know their counsellors, as well as their counsellors know them.

It is a strange thing to behold, what gross errors and extreme absurdities many (especially of the greater sort) do commit, for want of a friend to tell them of them.

Patience and gravity of hearing, is an essential part of justice; and an overspeaking judge is no well-tuned cymbal.

All wise men, to decline the envy of their own virtues, use to ascribe them to Providence and Fortune; for so they may the better assume them: and, besides, it is greatness in a man, to be the care of the higher powers.

The wisdom of a law-maker consisteth not only in a platform of justice, but in the application thereof; taking into consideration by what means laws may be made certain.

Let us consider the false appearances that are imposed upon us by words, which are framed and applied according to the conceit and capacities of the vulgar sort; and although we think we govern our words, and prescribe it well ... yet certain it is that words, as a Tartar's bow, do shoot back upon the understanding of the wisest, and mightily entangle and pervert the judgment.

And certain it is, that the light that a man receiveth by counsel from another, is drier and purer, than that which cometh from his own understanding and judgment; which is ever infused, and drenched, in his affections and customs.

We come therefore now to that knowledge whereunto the ancient oracle directeth us, which is the knowledge of ourselves; which deserveth the more accurate handling, by how much it toucheth us more nearly.

For in knowledge man's mind suffereth from sense: but in belief it suffereth from spirit.

The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath: the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation.

Costly followers are not to be liked; lest while a man maketh his train longer, he make his wings shorter.

The images of men's wit and knowledge remain in books, exempted from the worry of time and capable of perpetual renovation.

There are no straight lines in Nature or Shakespeare.

The most valuable result of many years is a nicely balanced mind instinctively heedful of various errors.

Great and terrible systems of divinity and philosophy lie round about us, which, if true, might drive a wise man mad.

Why not leave the reading of great books till a great age? Why plague and perplex childhood with complex facts remote from its experience and inapprehensible by its imagination?