Quotes About Wisdom

Here's a tip for new parents: Start lowering those expectations early, it's going to pay off later.

Once you got that old, you might as well be ninety-eight or a hundred and eight. Nothing left for the world to show you but the latest incarnations of cruelty.

It was in the realm of his humor, and Carney had doubtless laughed. You get older and the old jokes grow less funny.

You're supposed to pass on something useful to your children.

Sometimes a useful delusion is better than a useless truth. Nothing

Step back and the world is a classroom if need be.

This slow debate about the rain: it's not about rain at all, but the fragility of what we know. We're all just guessing.

Goodness was more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love. Even if people laughed at the notion of goodness, if they found it sentimental, or nostalgic, it didn't matter -- it was none of those things, he said, and it had to be fought for.

The luxury of age was the giving up of vanity.

Rumi: Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I have begun to change myself.

The essence of intelligence was to know when, or if, to expose even the heart's deep need for instruction.

It's hardly wisdom, but the older I get the more I believe that our lives are built not out of time, but light. The problem is that the images that so often return to me are seldom those I want.

Goodness is more difficult than evil. Evil men knew that more than good men. That's why they became evil. That's why it stuck with them. Evil was for those who could never reach the truth. It was a mask for stupidity and lack of love.

The overexamined life... It's not worth living.

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I have begun to change myself.

If you are wise you step through the darkness only one foot at a time.

If you think you know all the secrets, you think you know all the cures.

The only thing you need to know about war, son, is: Don't go.

The over examined life, Claire, it's not worth living.

He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction.

There was a quote about standing in a river too long or long enough that I can't find now. Anyone remember? If so, what page?

He was aware that the essence of proper intelligence was the embrace of contradiction. And the recognition of complexity was to be balanced against the need for simplicity

Listening to these people is like listening to trees—sooner or later the tree is sliced open and the watermarks reveal their age.

I don't remember which philosopher it was who said: There is never any shortage of old women.