Quotes About Wisdom

He spoke with more eloquence than wisdom.

I've gotten more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me.

I always avoid prophesying beforehand because it is much better to prophesy after the event has already taken place.

People stumble over the truth from time to time, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

When you have got a thing where you want, it is a good thing to leave it where it is.

The longer you look back, the farther you can look forward.

Anyone who was not a liberal at 20 years of age had no heart, while anyone who was still a liberal at 40 had no head.

Occasionally a man stumbles over the truth. Most dust themselves off and continue walking as though nothing had happened.

We owe to the Jews in the Christian revelation a system of ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all other wisdom and learning put together. On that system and by that faith there has been built out of the wreck of the Roman Empire the whole of our existing civilization.

The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward.

There is a good saying to the effect that when a new book appears one should read an old one.

I have taken more out of alcohol than alcohol has taken out of me

One must never forget when misfortunes come that it is quite possible they are saving one from something much worse; or that when you make some great mistake, it may very easily serve you better than the best-advised decision.

Logic, like science, must be the servant and not the master of man.

all that is in the past, and the past belongs to God.

The crimes of the vanquished find their background and their explanation, though not, of course, their pardon, in the follies of the victors. Without these follies crime would have found neither temptation nor opportunity.

Il ne faut jamais oublié quand un malheur vous frappe, qu'il peut très bien vous épargner un ennui pire encore; ou que, quand vous commettez une lourde erreur, cela peut très bien vous servir mieux que la décision la plus sage. La vie est un tout, la chance est un tout, et on ne peut séparer aucun élément du reste.

imagination without deep and full knowledge is a snare

Too often the strong, silent man is silent only because he does not know what to say, and he is reputed strong only because he has remained silent.

Past experience carries with its advantages the drawback that things never happen the same way again.

There is always a strong case for doing nothing, especially for doing nothing yourself.

There is always much to be said for not attempting more than you can do and for making a certainty of what you try. But this principle, like others in life and war, has its exceptions.

It is sometimes wise to allow natural processes to work, and crimes and follies to be paid in coin from their own mint.

And then perhaps in the evenings a real love of learning would come to those who were worthy—and why try to stuff it into those who are not?—and knowledge and thought would open the 'magic casements' of the mind.