Quotes About Wisdom

I used to write things that might have sounded better coming out of an older person's voice or vision. Hence, "grandpa-boy." I'm an old man, but I'm a boy. A really old boy!

It's not what enters men's mouth that is evil," said the alchemist. It's what comes out of their mouths that is.

The young need old men. They need men who are not ashamed of age, not pathetic imitations of themselves. ... Parents are the bones on which children sharpen their teeth.

I believe that school makes complete fools of our young men, because they see and hear nothing of ordinary life there.

God, Nature, the wise, the world, preach man, exhort him both by word and deed to the study of himself.

All men, well interrogated, answer well.

Fields and trees are not willing to teach me anything; but this can be effected by men residing in the city.

May I deem the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or employ.

The tools which would teach men their own use would be beyond price.

The prudent man really frames his own fortunes for himself.

Water and our necessary food are the only things that wise men must fight for.

Wise men are able to make a fitting use even of their enmities.

Where two discourse, if the anger of one rises, he is the wise man who lets the contest fall.

Cato requested old men not to add the disgrace of wickedness to old age, which was accompanied with many other evils.

I have heard that Tiberius used to say that that man was ridiculous, who after sixth years, appealed to a physician.

Spintharus, speaking in commendation of Epaminondas, says he scarce ever met with any man who knew more and spoke less.

Young man, the secret of my success is that an early age I discovered that I was not God.

Fools give you reasons, wise men never try.

The fatal errors of life are not due to man's being unreasonable: an unreasonable moment may be one's finest moment. They are due to man's being logical.

The man who sees both sides of a question is a man who sees absolutely nothing at all.

Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him.

When a man is old enough to do wrong he should be old enough to do right also.

A sentence well couched takes both the sense and understanding. I love not those cart-rope speeches that are longer than the memory of man can fathom.

God's own foolishness is stronger than men. Do we believe that?