Quotes About Wisdom

I always assume that a good book is more intelligent than its author. It can say things that the writer is not aware of.

learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

when your true enemies are too strong, you have to choose weaker enemies. I reflected that this is why the simple are so called. Only the powerful always know with great clarity who their true enemies are.

That man is … odd," I dared say to William. "He is, or has been, in many ways a great man. But for this very reason he is odd. It is only petty men who seem normal. Ubertino

Es inútil, ya no tenemos la sabiduría de los antiguos, ¡se acabó la época de los gigantes! -Somos enanos -admitió Guillermo-, pero enanos subidos a los hombros de aquellos gigantes, y, aunque pequeños, a veces logramos ver más allá de su horizonte.

Jedes Geschöpf der Welt ist uns gleichsam ein Buch und Gemälde und Spiegel. (Every creature of the world is to us at once a book and painting and mirror.)

Where is all my wisdom, then? I behaved stubbornly, pursuing a semblance of order, when I should have known well that there is no order in the universe.

O mundo está cheio de livros fantásticos que ninguém lê

The others believed me wise because I won, but they didn't know the many instances in which I have been foolish because I lost, and they didn't know that a few seconds before winning I wasn't sure I wouldn't lose.

Signora, there's nothing in this world that demands more caution than the truth. To tell the truth is like leeching one's own heart….

And you," I said with childish impertinence, "never commit errors?" "Often," he answered. "But instead of conceiving only one, I imagine many, so I become the slave of none.

It is the logic of research and discovery that is tortuous, because it is the logic of science. Whereas the logic of knowledge needs no discovery, because it knows already.

But then how can we trust ancient wisdom, whose traces you are always seeking, if it is handed down by lying books that have interpreted it with such license? Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means, a precept that the commentators of the holy books had very clearly in mind.

The poets did not win; the philosophers surrendered.

Io non vi dico di prepararvi all'altra vita, ma di usare bene quest'unica vita che vi è data, per affrontare quando verrà, l'unica morte di cui avrete mai esperienza. E' necessario meditare prima, e molte volte, sull'arte del morire, per riuscire a farlo bene una sola volta

I know nothing. There is nothing that I know. But the heart senses certain things. Let your heart speak, question faces, do not listen to tongues.

If God existed, he would be a library.

Chi non legge, a 70 anni avrà vissuto una sola vita. Chi legge avrà vissuto 5000 anni. A lettura è una immortalità all'indietro.

Bacon was right in saying that the conquest of learning is achieved through the knowledge of languages.

Um Humanwissenschaften zu betreiben, genügt es nicht, Kriminalromane zu lesen, als ob sie Parmenides wären, man muß auch Parmenides lesen, als ob er ein Kriminalroman wäre.

It is certainly human to make mistakes, but there are some human beings who make more than others, and they are called fools.

As the Chinese said, to curse someone: "May you live in an interesting period.

the more things you know, or pretend to know, the more powerful you are. It doesn't matter if things are true. What counts, remember, is to possess a secret.

there's nothing in this world that demands more caution than the truth. To tell the truth is like leeching one's own heart...