Quotes About Wisdom

The stupidity of a stupid man is exercised in a restricted field; the stupidity of an intelligent man has a much wider diffusion, and a far greater effect, aided as it is by the element of surprise.

Not only is the old man twice a child, but also the man who is drunk.

Men of sound sense have Law for their god, but men without sense Pleasure.

I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power.

Men are most apt to believe what they least understand; and through the lust of human wit obscure things are more easily credited.

Humility saves man: pride makes him lose his way.

Lust sullies every age of man, but quite extinguishes old age.

Wise man also fears a weak enemy.

Every man has been made by God in order to acquire knowledge and contemplate.

A good book, in the language of the book-sellers, is a salable one; in that of the curious, a scarce one; in that of men of sense, a useful and instructive one.

Adde, quod ingénues didicisse fideliter artes Emollit mores, nec sinit esse fervos. To be instructed in the arts, softens the manners and makes men gentle.

Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God.

Every man I meet is in some way my superior...

Men in all ways are better than they seem.

Nature never sends a great man into the planet, without confiding the secret to another soul.

Sanity is very rare; every man almost and every woman has a dash of madness.

The surest way to make a monkey of a man is to quote him.

But honest men do not pretend to know; they are candid and sincere; they love the truth; they admit their ignorance, and they say, We do not know.

Before a man speaks it is always safe to assume that he is a fool. After he speaks, it is seldom necessary to assume it.

It is the power of thought that gives man power over nature.

For the value of everything exists for man only so long as he does not understand it. When he has fully understood, the value is lost, be it the lowest thing or the highest thing.

Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.

If it is reason that forms man then it is the emotions that guide her.

God is a sort of burglar. As a young man you knock him down; as an old man you try to conciliate him, because he may knock you down.