Quotes About Wisdom

Real knowledge, like everything else of value, is not to be obtained easily. It must be worked for, studied for, thought for, and, more that all, must be prayed for.

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

The maxim that people should not have a right till they are ready to exercise it properly, is worthy of the fool in the old story who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim.

Books are becoming everything to me. If I had at this moment any choice in life, I would bury myself in one of those immense libraries...and never pass a waking hour without a book before me.

Every man who has seen the world knows that nothing is so useless as a general maxim.... If, like those of Rochefoucault, it be sparkling and whimsical, it may make an excellent motto for an essay. But few, indeed, of the many wise apophthegms which have been uttered from the time of the Seven Sages of Greece to that of Poor Richard have prevented a single foolish action.

And to say that society ought to be governed by the opinion of the wisest and best, though true, is useless. Whose opinion is to decide who are the wisest and best?

What a blessing it is to love books as I love them;- to be able to converse with the dead, and to live amidst the unreal!

If anybody would make me the greatest king that ever lived, with palaces and gardens, and fine dinners, and wine and coaches, and beautiful clothes, and hundreds of servants, on condition that I would not read books, I would not be a king. I would rather be a poor man in a garret with plenty of books than a king who did not love reading.

Nothing is so useless as a general maxim.

Shakespeare is forever coming into our affairs -- putting in his oar, so to speak -- with some pat word or sentence.

So precious life is! Even to the old, the hours are as a miser's coins!

The Creator gave man two ears and one mouth;there is a reason why He did so.

For when the wine is in, the wit is out.

God give us grace to have the true knowledge of God and of ourselves.

The art and science of asking questions is the source of all knowledge.

Tell us, Merlin," said he, "why do we feel no sense of triumph in this?" And Merlin answered, "Well, is not triumph a childish feeling, Sire?

The more any man is in the contemplation of truth, the more fairer and firmer impression is made upon his heart by truth.

You are wise, and know how to apply it.

Such as have made a considerable improvement of their gifts and graces, have hearts as large as their heads; whereas most men's heads have outgrown their hearts.

I]t is not hasty reading--but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths, that make them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It is not the bee's touching of the flower, which gathers honey--but her abiding for a time upon the flower, which draws out the sweet. It is not he who reads most--but he who meditates most, who will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.

The best course to prevent falling into the pit is to keep at the greatest distance from it; he who will be so bold as to attempt to dance upon the brink of the pit, may find by woeful experience that it is a righteous thing with God that he should fall into the pit.

It is not the bee's touching of the flower that gathers honey, but her abiding for a time upon the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most, that will prove the choicest, sweetest, wisest and strongest Christian.

Quotation mistakes, inadvertency, expedition, and human lapses, may make not only moles but warts in learned authors...

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.