Quotes About Wisdom

Indeed, the life of facts proved no bad substitute for the facts of life.

Gross ignorance produces a dogmatic spirit. He who knows nothing thinks he can teach others what he has himself just been learning. He who knows much scarcely believes that what he is saying is unknown to others, and consequently speaks with more hesitation.

Liberality consists less in giving much than in giving at the right moment.

A wise man is not governed by others, nor does he try to govern them; he prefers that reason alone prevail.

It is a fool's privilege to laugh at an intelligent man.

He who will not listen to any advice, nor be corrected in his writings, is a rank pedant.

Profound ignorance makes a man dogmatical.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune, and favor cannot satisfy him.

The fear of old age disturbs us, yet we are not certain of becoming old.

We come too late to say anything which has not been said already.

Men regret their life has been ill-spent, but this does not always induce them to make a better use of the time they have yet to live.

It is a sad thing when men have neither enough intelligence to speak well nor enough sense to hold their tongues.

There are some extraordinary fathers, who seem, during the whole course of their lives, to be preparing reasons for their children for being consoled at their deaths.

Let people have an education and you can't stop them.

Passion often renders the most clever man a fool, and sometimes renders the most foolish man clever.

We can give advice, but we cannot give conduct.

No people are more often wrong than those who will not allow themselves to be wrong.

Hope, deceitful as it is, carries us through life agreeably enough.

Everyone complains of his lack of memory, but nobody of his want of judgment.

Philosophy triumphs easily over past evils and future evils but present evils triumph over it.

The man who lives free from folly is not so wise as he thinks.

The surest way to be deceived is to think oneself cleverer than the others.

There is no accident so disastrous that a clever man cannot derive some profit from it nor any so fortunate that a fool cannot turn it to his disadvantage.

Few know how to be old.