Quotes About Wisdom

The truth is lived, not taught.

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.

The truth has a million faces, but there is only one truth.

There is, so I believe, in the essence of everything, something that we cannot call learning. There is, my friend, only a knowledge -- that is everywhere.

No eyes will raise to heaven. The pure will be thought insane and the impure will be honoured as wise. The madman will be believed brave, and the wicked esteemed as good.

The excellence of the soul is understanding; for the man who understands is conscious, devoted, and already godlike.

O ye people, earth-born folk, ye who have given yourselves to drunkenness and sleep and ignorance of God, be sober now,cease from your surfeit, cease to be glamored by irrational sleep!

My discourse leads to the truth; the mind is great and guided by this teaching is able to arrive at some understanding. When the mind has understood all things and found them to be in harmony with what has been expounded by the teachings, it is faithful and comes to rest in that beautiful faith.

Philosophy is nothing else than striving through constant contemplation and saintly piety to attain knowledge of God.

83. Avoid all conversation with the multitude or common people; for I would not have you subject to envy, much less to be ridiculous unto the multitude.

This is what you must know: that in you which sees and hears is the word of the lord, but your mind is god the father; they are not divided from one another for their union is life.

Having made them rise, I became guide to my race, teaching them the words – how to be saved and in what manner – and I sowed the words of wisdom among them, and they were nourished from the ambrosial water.

74. The Earth is brutish; the Heaven is reasonable or rational.

72. Things upon Earth, do not advantage those in Heaven; but all things in Heaven do profit and advantage all things upon Earth.

Entre las cosas admirables, sobrepasa a todas las demás el que el hombre haya llegado a conocer y a crear la naturaleza divina.

The end of all our exploring," as T. S. Eliot reminds us, "will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

Some people are exceptionally clear eyed. To them, nothing is ever too complex or mysterious. Answers invisible to most are in plain sight to these enlightened few. Their approach to the world is elementary and, without fail, right. They see through false complications and find the simple truths of life. Mildred was blessed with this lucidity.

an abundance of facts is not necessarily an abundance of knowledge.

This is the bitterest pain among men, to have much knowledge but no power.

Haste in every business brings failures.

Those who are guided by reason are generally successful in their plans; those who are rash and precipitate seldom enjoy the favour of the gods.

Of all men's miseries the bitterest is this: to know so much and to have control over nothing.

He asked, 'Croesus, who told you to attack my land and meet me as an enemy instead of a friend?' The King replied, 'It was caused by your good fate and my bad fate. It was the fault of the Greek gods, who with their arrogance, encouraged me to march onto your lands. Nobody is mad enough to choose war whilst there is peace. During times of peace, the sons bury their fathers, but in war it is the fathers who send their sons to the grave.

The worst pain a man can suffer: to have insight into much and power over nothing.