Quotes About Wisdom

it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid.

Don't judge a book by its cover.

All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy.

If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.

John considered a young master as the natural enemy of an old servant, and young people in general as a poor contrivance for carrying on the world.

we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we sometimes end by inverting the quantities.

The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text—which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims, not the virtuous upholder of the wrong.

But, for the point of wisdom, I would choose / To know the mind that stirs between the wings / Of bees...

it is a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of providence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe, will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of thing.

The only conscience we can trust to is the massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my test–which side is injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous upholder of the wrong.

Something he must read, when he was not riding the pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the talk of men... it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life was stupid... knowledge seemed to him a very superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversations of his elders he had apparently got already more than was necessary for mature life.

It is better to keep your mouth closed and appear a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.

for the human mind in that grassy corner had not the proverbial tendency to admire the unknown, holding rather that it was likely to be against the poor man, and that suspicion was the only wise attitude with regard to it.

Truth has rough flavours if we bite it through.

The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them forward.

There is no short cut, no patent tram-road, to wisdom: after all the centuries of invention, the soul's path lies through the thorny wilderness which must be still trodden in solitude, with bleeding feet, with sobs for help, as it was trodden by them of old time.

I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion.

The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.

Perhaps we don't always discriminate between sense and nonsense.

The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentleman whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes.

am sure you could teach me a thousand things—as an exquisite bird could teach a bear if there were any common language between them. Happily

Those who are not of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the obstinately worldly.

One must use such brains as are to be found

She wished, poor child, to be wise herself.