Quotes About Wisdom

Every day people judge all other people. The question is whether they judge wisely.

She remembered the story from her childhood, about Adam and Eve in the garden, and the talking snake. Even as a little girl she had said - to the consternation of her family - What kind of idiot was Eve, to believe a snake? But now she understood, for she had heard the voice of the snake and had watched as a wise and powerful man had fallen under its spell. Eat the fruit and you can have the desires of your heart. It's not evil, it's noble and good. You'll be praised for it. And it's delicious.

The most noble title any child can have, Demosthenes wrote, is third.

For the first time in his life, a teacher was pointing out things that Ender had not already seen for himself. For the first time, Ender had found a living mind he could admire.

Andrew said you were the best person he ever knew. He reached that conclusion before he saw me raise three barbarian children to adulthood. I understand your mother has six. Right. And you're the oldest. Yes. That's too bad. Parents always make their worst mistakes with the oldest children. That's when parents know the least and care the most, so they're more likely to be wrong and also more likely to insist that they're right.

A good commander, thought Ender, doesn't have to make stupid threats.

From all wise men, O Lord, protect us.

I know everything I need to know already, Rigg always said... To which Father always replied,See how ignorant you are? You don't even know why you need to know the things you don't know yet. So tell me, said Rigg. I would but you're too ignorant to understand the reasons why your ignorance is a fatal disease...

Ender was a destroyer, but what he destroyed was illusion, and the illusion had to die...the truth about ourselves. Somehow this ancient man is able to see the truth and it doesn't blind his eyes or drive him mad. I must listen to this voice and let its power come to me so I, too, can stare at the light and not die.

If you did not in your own mind distinguish between useful and erroneous information, then you were not learning at all, you were merely replacing ignorance with false belief, which was no improvement.

If one has to say, in an argument, I am intelligent! I do know things! then one might as well stop arguing.

A real god doesn't care about control. A real god already has control of everything that needs controlling. Real gods would want to teach you how to be just like them.

You don't have to eat the entire turd to know that it's not a crab cake.

It [seed of doubt] made Ender listen to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

I know that you are wise. When you hear a true story, there is a part of you that responds to it regardless of art, regardless of evidence…You believe that the story is true, because you responded to it from that sense of truth deep within you. But that sense of truth does not respond to a story's factuality...[rather] to a story's causality - whether it faithfully shows the way the universe functions.

No single] explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, ALWAYS more to learn.

But it was not the boyish grin she had known when he bounded along the low-gravity inner corridors of Battle School. This smile had weariness in it, and old fears long mastered but still present. It was the smile of wisdom.

We know everything we knew that was worth knowing, that's a crucial distinction.

That was Ender's gift to us, to free us from the illusion that any one explanation will ever contain the final answer for all time, for all hearers. There is always, always more to learn.

It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

Only a fool closes the door when the wolf is already inside the barn.

So he believed. Believed, but the seed of doubt was there, and it stayed, and every now and then sent out a little root. It changed everything, to have that seed growing. It made Ender listen more carefully to what people meant, instead of what they said. It made him wise.

If only we could stand outside our lives and look at what we do, we might repair so many injuries before they're done.