Quotes About Wisdom

wise men talk because they have something to say fools talk because they have to say something

el alma no conserva ningún conocimiento que haya penetrado en ella por la fuerza.

Knowledge, do you say it is power? yes most mighty of all powers.

Both knowledge and truth are beautiful things, but the good is other and more beautiful than they.

International

Adic? socoÈ›i dreptatea un defect? - Nu, ci doar o nobil? neghiobie. (Trachymarchos în Republica, de Platon)

Por tanto, ven tanto, de los que perciben muchas cosas bellas, pero no ven lo bello en sí ni pueden seguir a otro que a ello los conduzca y asimismo ven muchas cosas justas, pero no lo justo en sí, y de igual manera todo lo demás, diremos que opinan de todo, pero que no conocen nada de aquello sobre qué opinan.

I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better.

there is simple ignorance, which is the source of lighter offences, and double ignorance, which is accompanied by a conceit of wisdom; and he who is under the influence of the latter fancies that he knows all about matters of which he knows nothing.

There neither is nor ever will be a treatise of mine on the subject. For it does not admit of exposition like other branches of knowledge; but after much converse about the matter itself and a life lived together, suddenly a light, as it were, is kindled in one soul by a flame that leaps to it from another, and thereafter sustains itself.

Such was the end of our comrade, Echecrates, a man who, we would say, was of all those we have known the best, and also the wisest and the most upright.

And when you see a man who is repining at the approach of death, is not his reluctance a sufficient proof that he is not a lover of wisdom, but a lover of the body, and probably at the same time a lover of either money or power, or both?

la geometría es conocimiento de lo que siempre existe. -Entonces, ¡oh, mi noble amigo!, atraerá el alma hacia la verdad y formará mentes filosóficas que dirijan ha­cia arriba aquello que ahora dirigimos indebidamente hacia abajo.

Sigamos, pues, hablando y escuchando por turno, pero recordando antes el lugar en que describíamos las cualidades innatas que había de reunir forzosamente quien hubiera de ser hombre de bien. Y su principal y primera cualidad era, si lo recuerdas, la verdad, la cual debía él perseguir en todo asunto y por todas partes si no era un embustero que nada tuviese que ver con la verda­dera filosofía.

There is no need, however, to be angry at this ambition of theirs-- which may be forgiven; for every man ought to be loved who says and manfully pursues and works out anything which is at all like wisdom: at the same time we shall do well to see them as they really are.

And things which are at their best are also least liable to be altered or discomposed; for example, when healthiest and strongest, the human frame is least liable to be affected by meats and drinks, and the plant which is in the fullest vigor also suffers least from winds or the heat of the sun or any similar causes. -Of course. -And will not the bravest and wisest soul be least confused or deranged by any external influence? -True.

quien durante tanto tiempo se ha ocupado de estos asuntos pueda exponerlas opiniones de los demás, pero no las suyas. -¿Pues qué? -dije yo-. ¿Te parece bien que hable uno de las cosas que no sabe como si las supiese?

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light

If you're intelligent, you find a few sensible men much more frightening than a senseless crowd. - Agathon to Socrates

pedagogical

The true lover of learning then must from his earliest youth, as far as in him lies, desire all truth...

I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know.

Porque temer la muerte, atenienses, no es otra cosa que creerse sabio sin serlo, y creer conocer lo que no se sabe. En efecto, nadie conoce la muerte, ni sabe si es el mayor de los bienes para el hombre. Sin embargo, se la teme, como si se supiese con certeza que es el mayor de todos los males. ¡Ah! ¿No es una ignorancia vergonzante creer conocer una cosa que no se conoce?

Then you have sufficient indication, he said, that any man whom you see resenting death was not a lover of wisdom but a lover of the body, and also a lover of wealth or of honors, either or both.