Quotes About Wisdom

If you think in terms of a year, plant a seed; if in terms of ten years, plant trees; if in terms of 100 years, teach the people.

To be fond of learning is to be near to knowledge. To practice with vigor is to be near to magnanimity. To possess the feeling of shame is to be near to energy.

Five things constitute perfect virtue: gravity, magnanimity, earnestness, sincerity and kindness.

Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.

It is only the wisest and the stupidest that cannot change.

The man of wisdom is never in two minds about right and wrong; the man of benevolence never worries about the future; the man of courage is never afraid.

Learning without thought is labor lost; and thought without learning is perilous.

He who seeks only coarse food to eat, water to drink, and bent arm for pillow, will without looking for it find happiness to boot. Any thought of accepting wealth and rank by means that I know to be wrong is as remote from me as the clouds that float above.

To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.

To go too far is as bad as not to go far enough.

In the morning, hear the Way; in the evening, die content!

Meet resentment with upright dealing and meet inner power with inner power.

Till you have learned to serve men, how can you serve ghosts? Till you know about the living, how are you to know about the dead?

Imperturbable, resolute, tree-like, slow to speak—such a one is near to Goodness.

He who does not economize will have to agonize.

There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.

Chi Wen Tzu always thought three times before taking action. Twice would have been quite enough.

If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the evening without regret.

The object of the superior man is truth.

A scholar who loves comfort is not fit to be called a scholar.

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

I for my part am not one of those who have innate knowledge. I am simply one who loves the past and who is diligent in investigating it.

What is over and done with, one does not discuss. What has already taken its course, one does not criticize; what already belongs to the past, one does not censure.

If we don't know life, how can we know death?