Quotes About Wisdom

What I was going to say is that my mentor had this theory that our lives are like an aboriginal longhouse. Just one huge room." He swept one arm out to illustrate scope. "He said that if we thought we could compartmentalize things, we were deluding ourselves. Everyone we meet, every word we speak, every action taken or not taken lives in our longhouse. With us. Always. Never to be expelled or locked away.

And while forgetting the past might condemn people to repeat it, remembering it too vividly condemned them to never leave.

believe in using your head. But not in spending too much time in there. Fear lives in the head. And courage lives in the heart. The job is to get from one to the other.

the four sentences that lead to wisdom. I'm sorry. I was wrong. I need help. I don't know.

Maybe that's what old men are for. To make decisions that no young man can." He was watching Gamache closely. "Or should have to.

Hell is the truth seen too late," said Reine-Marie as she poured out more coffee. "Thomas Hobbes.

Before laptops and BlackBerries and all the other tools that mistook information for knowledge. It was an old library, filled with old books and dusty old thoughts.

What is essential is invisible to the eye. Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries. But

If you don't know something, ask. You have to be able to admit you don't know something, otherwise you'll just get more and more confused, or worse, you'll jump to a false conclusion. All the mistakes I've made have been because I've assumed something and then acted as though it was fact.

If you pretend to know you aren't going to actually learn.

There are four things that lead to wisdom. You ready for them?' She nodded, wondering when the police work would begin. "They are four sentences we learn to say, and mean." Gamache held up his hand as a fist and raised a finger with each point. 'I don't know. I need help. I'm sorry. I was wrong'.

Marcus Aurelius. The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.

In the kingdom of the blind, Amelia recited to herself as she trudged along— —the one-eyed man is king, Gamache read.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

One day that ego of yours'll kill you. That's all it is, you know. You pretend it's selfless, you pretend to be the great teacher, the wise and patient Armand Gamache, but you and I both know it's ego. Pride. Be careful, my friend. She's dangerous. You've said so yourself.

Three craggy pine trees had stood at the far end of the green for as long as anyone remembered, like wise men who'd found what they were looking for.

Don't believe everything you think. Chief Inspector Gamache wrote that on the board for the incoming cadets at the start of every year at the Sûreté academy, and it stayed there all year.

What is essential is invisible to the eye. Knowledge, ideas, thoughts. Imagination. All invisible. All lived in libraries.

Irene Finney, like many very elderly people, knew that the world was indeed flat. It had a beginning and an end. And she had come to the edge.

He felt like a mobile library. Where other investigators gathered fingerprints and evidence, he gathered books.

told them the four statements that led to wisdom. Never repeating them. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I don't know. I need help.

Young Langlois had sat down and gathered that power to him. The power that came from having information, knowledge, thoughts, and a calm place to collect them.

If stupid was sand, he'd be half the Sahara.

Everything makes sense. Everything. We just don't know how yet.