Quotes About Wisdom

Mysterious Words from the Past

everyone who is interesting has a past

Mom always said people worried too much about their children. Suffering when you are young is good for you, she said. It immunized your body and your soul.

God knows what He's doing

Most important thing in life," he would say, "is learning how to fall." *

The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple. —Oscar Wilde

She also told me that teachers don't know everything, but as long as they stay a step ahead of the students, the students think they do.

Most important thing in life, he would say, is learning how to fall.

I had found my religion: nothing seemed more important to me than a book. I saw the library as a temple.

J'ai commencé ma vie comme je la finirai sans doute : au milieu des livres.

With older people, it's quite different. They're reliable, they show you what to do, and there's solidity in their affection.

This then is the age of reason.

No, my child, these things are impossible. It would have been better if she had recognize the truth courageously. She would have suffered once, then time would have erased with its sponge. There is nothing like looking things in the face, believe me.

I would like to see the truth clearly before it is too late.

There are also amateurs. These are secretaries, office workers, shopkeepers, people who listen to others in cafes: around forty they feel swollen, with an experience they can't get rid of. Luckily they've made children on whom they can pass it off. They would like to make us believe that their past is not lost, that their memories are condensed, gently transformed into Wisdom.

Je n'ai jamais gratté la terre ni quêté des nids, je n'ai pas herborisé ni lancé des pierres aux oiseaux. Mais les livres ont été mes oiseaux et mes nids, mes bêtes domestiques, mon étable et ma campagne.

When you want to understand something you stand in front of it, alone, without help: all the past in the world is of no use.

Only he who knows how to speak can be silent.

If someone read every book that's ever been written all he could when he was done is he'd read a lot of books.

If someone read every book that had ever been written. all he could say when he was done is he'd read a lot of books.

Take away the ability of an intelligent, principled, hard-working mind to get it wrong, and you take away the whole thing.

Practice non-action. Work without doing.

The Tao of the sage is work without effort.

If you want to accord with the Tao, just do your job, then let go.