Quotes About Wisdom

The mathematician who is without value to mathematicians, the thinker who is obscure or meaningless to thinkers, the dramatist who fails to move the pit, may be wise, may be eminent, but as an author he has failed.

Many a genius has been slow of growth. Oaks that flourish for a thousand years do not spring up into beauty like a reed.

It will often be a question when a man is or is not wise in advancing unpalatable opinions, or in preaching heresies; but it can never be a question that a man should be silent if unprepared to speak the truth as he conceives it.

The opinion of the majority is not lightly to be rejected; but neither is it to be carelessly echoed.

Individual experiences being limited and individual spontaneity feeble, we are strengthened and enriched by assimilating the experience of others.

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Conservatism is primarily based on a proper recognition of human limitations, and cannot be argued in a spirit of self-glorifying logic.

I can't imagine a man really enjoying a book and reading it only once.

Though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time.

The trouble about trying to make yourself stupider than you really are is that you very often succeed.

No book is really worth reading at the age of ten which is not equally (and often far more) worth reading at the age of fifty.... The only imaginative works we ought to grow out of are those which it would have been better not to have read at all.

The Old Testament contains fabulous elements. The New Testament consists mostly of teaching, not of narrative at all: but where it is narrative, it is, in my opinion, historical. As to the fabulous element in the Old Testament, I very much doubt if you would be wise to chuck it out.

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.

There is something which unites magic and applied science while separating both from the wisdom of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem had been how to conform the soul to reality, and the solution had been knowledge, self-discipline, and virtue. For magic and applied science alike the problem is how to subdue reality to the wishes of men.

You find out more about God from the Moral Law than from the universe in general just as you find out more about a man by listening to his conversation than by looking at a house he has built.

It is the stupidest children who are the most childish and the stupidest grown-ups who are the most grown-up.

An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only.

"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.

"Tut, tut, child," said the Duchess. "Everything's got a moral if only you can find it."

Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.

"We called him Tortoise because he taught us," said the Mock Turtle angrily. "Really you are very dull!"

He thought he saw an AlbatrossThat fluttered round the lamp:He looked again, and found it wasA penny postage stamp."You'd best be getting home," he said,"The nights are very damp."

"You are old, Father William," the young man said,"And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head—Do you think, at your age, it is right?"