Quotes About Wisdom

For the world to follow, we must do more than rattle our sabers and demand allegiance to our vision simply because we believe we are right. We must provide a reason for others to aspire to that vision. And that reason must come with more than the repetition of a bumper-sticker phrase about freedom and democracy. It must come with more than the restatement of failed policy. It must come with the wisdom to admit when we are wrong and resolve to change course and get it right.

The thoughts that come often unsought, and, as it were, drop into the mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we have, and therefore should be secured, because they seldom return again.

At a certain age some people's minds close up. Then they live on their intellectual fat.

Deliberation is necessary, unless we wish to play a fool's part. No amount of energy will take the place of thought. A strenuous life, with its eyes shut, is a kind of wild insanity. A drifting life, with its eyes open, is a kind of mild idiocy.

When God created man, He gave him two ends — one to sit on and one to think with. Ever since then, man's success or failure has been dependent on the one he used most.

Thrift began with civilization. It began when men found it necessary to provide for to-morrow as well as for to-day. It began long before money was invented.

Thrift comes too late when you find it at the bottom of your purse.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.

Time gives good advice. (El tiempo da buen consejo.)

Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time, which every day produces, and which most men throw away, but which nevertheless will make at the end of it, no small deduction from the little life of man. Cicero has termed them intercisiva tempora, and the ancients were not ignorant of their value; nay, it was not unusual with them either to compose or to dictate, while under the operation of rubbing after the bath.

It has been said that in human life there are moments worth ages...

The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is now.

It is alike your interest and mine and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth.

Opinion is a flitting thing But truth outlasts the sun, If then we cannot own them both, Possess the oldest one.

Don't keep searching for the truth, just let go of your opinions.

When one has one's hand full of truth it is not always wise to open it.

All mushrooms are edible — but some only once.

The man who strikes first admits that his ideas have given out.

Virtue is an angel, but she is a blind one, and must ask of Knowledge to show her the pathway that leads to her goal.

The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living.

There has been war since the beginning of time and we are no smarter than the people that have gone before us. There is apt to be some more war.

Ancient oceanic proverb: The enemy of my anemone is my frenanemone.

Of wine the middle, of oil the top, and of honey the bottom is best.

Wine makes old wives wenches.