Quotes About Wisdom

We can know nothing about what is outside us if we overlook ourselves, he thinks now. The universe is the mirror in which we can contemplate only what we have learned to know in ourselves.

Reader, it is time for your tempest-tossed vessel to come to port. What harbor can receive you more securely than a great library? Certainly there is one in the city from which you set out and to which you have returned after circling the world from book to book.

Un classico è un libro che non ha mai finito di dire quel che ha da dire.

My brother maintains," I answered, "that those who wish to look carefully at the earth should stay at the necessary distance," and Voltaire very much admired the answer.

I will quote Cioran (who is not yet a classic but will become one): "While they were preparing the hemlock, Socrates was learning a tune on the flute. 'What good will it do you,' they asked, 'to know this tune before you die?

Are you depressed or euphoric? The house, in its wisdom, seems to have taken advantage of your moments of euphoria to prepare itself to shelter you in your moments of depression.

Ogni vita è un enciclopedia, una biblioteca, un campionario di stili, dove tutto può essere continuamente rimescolato e riordinato in tutti i modi possibili

I read, therefore it writes

Man is simply the best chance we know of that matter has had of providing itself with information about itself.

prendete la vita con leggerezza, che leggerezza non è superficialità, ma planare sulle cose dall'alto, non avere macigni sul cuore

No one, wise Kublai, knows better than you that the city must never be confused with the words that describe it.

One sees one's past more and more clearly as time goes by.

Le fiabe sono vere/Folktales are are real

The tale is not beautiful if nothing is added to it"—in other words, its value consists in what is woven and rewoven into it.

In gioventù ogni libro nuovo che si legge è come un nuovo occhio che si apre e modifica la vista degli altri occhi o libri-occhi che si avevano prima.

One can gain more truth from the exception than from the rule

Non si creda che i classici vanno letti perché "servono" a qualcosa. La sola ragione che si può addurre è che leggere i classici è meglio che non leggere i classici. E se qualcuno obietta che non val la pena di far tanta fatica, citerò Cioran: «Mentre veniva preparata la cicuta, Socrate stava imparando un'aria sul flauto. "A cosa ti servirà?" gli fu chiesto. "A sapere quest'aria prima di morire"».

Si alguna vez te conviertes en la mitad de ti mismo, muchacho, y te lo deseo, comprenderás cosas que escapan a la normal inteligencia de los cerebros enteros. Habrás perdido la mitad de ti y del mundo, pero la mitad que quede será mil veces más profunda y valiosa. Y también tú querrás que todo esté demediado y desgarrado a tu imagen, porque belleza y sabiduría y justicia existen sólo en aquello que está hecho a trozos.

However vast any person's basic reading may be, there still remain an enormous number of fundamental works that he has not read.

Who is each one of us, if not a combinatoria of experiences, information, books we have read. . . . Each life is an encyclopedia, a library.

Forse pagavo la felicità con la rinuncia a capire quello che vivevo

Tengo un librito, mucho más breve que los de Aristóteles y Ovidio, en el que están contenidas todas las ciencias y cualquiera puede, con poquísimo estudio, formarse de él una idea perfecta: es el alfabeto;

When will you discover that it would be a good idea to memorize your life, even the large part of it that will revolt you?

The sun didn't illuminate me! When you are old, you remain in shadow, even when you have wit.