Quotes About Wisdom

Everyone is wise until he speaks.

Twenty years a child twenty years running wild twenty years a mature man-and after that, praying.

A new broom sweeps clean, but the old broom knows the corners.

God is good, but never dance in a small boat.

Youth has a small head

If writers were good business men, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

People think it's all about misery and desperation and death and all that shite, which is not to be ignored, but what they forget is the pleasure of it. Otherwise we wouldn't do it. After all, we're not fucking stupid. At least, we're not that fucking stupid.

There's an element of truth in every idea that lasts long enough to be called corny.

The knowledge that makes us cherish innocence makes innocence unattainable.

If you believe that no one was ever corrupted by a book, you have also to believe that no one was ever improved by a book.

An intellectual may be defined as a man who speaks with general authority about a subject on which he has no particular competence.

When we lack the will to see things as they really are, there is nothing so mystifying as the obvious.

In living this way, we discover new opportunities for comfort and enjoyment. Where the younger person may have tossed and turned throughout a sleepless night, the older man or woman can possibly feel the pleasure that comes from lying on a good mattress, resting one's weary bones and overcharged intellect, whether or not one sleeps throughout the hours of darkness.

How difficult it is to be simple.

Savoir souffrir sans se plaindre, ça c'est la seule chose pratique, c'est la grande science, la leçon à apprendre, la solution du problème de la vie. [Knowing how to suffer without complaining is the only practical thing, it's the great science, the lesson to learn, the solution to the problem of life.]

I wish that I could say I was optimistic about the human race. I love us all, but we are so stupid and shortsighted that I wonder if we can lift our eyes to the world about us long enough not to commit suicide.

I fear my ignorance.

The cure for advanced gullibility is to go to sleep and consider matters again the next day.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is. The only function of a school is to make self-education easier; failing that, it does nothing.

Knowledge is indivisible. When people grow wise in one direction, they are sure to make it easier for themselves to grow wise in other directions as well. On the other hand, when they split up knowledge, concentrate on their own field, and scorn and ignore other fields, they grow less wise -- even in their own field.

Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know - and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.

Those people who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.