Quotes About Wisdom

But old age, to begin with, has something in common with death. Some face it with indifference, not because they have more courage than others, but because they have less imagination.

For man is that ageless creature who has the faculty of becoming many years younger in a few seconds, and who, surrounded by the walls of the time through which he has lived, floats within them as in a pool the surface-level of which is constantly changing so as to bring him within range now of one epoch, now of another.

It is a mistake," Labruyère tells us, "to be in love without an ample fortune.

The truth was, though as yet it was hardly apparent, that she was highly intelligent, and that in the things that she said the stupidity was not her own but that of her environment and age

We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us

With the wisdom of people not in love who believe a man of sense should be unhappy only over a person who is worth it; which is rather like being surprised that anyone should condescend to suffer from cholera because of so small a creature as the comma bacillus.

The only true voyage of discovery, the only fountain of Eternal Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to behold the universe through the eyes of another.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness that no one else can take for us, that no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

pretention is very close to stupidity and that simplicity has a less visible but still gratifying aspect.

I do find it absurd that a man of his intelligence should suffer over a person of that sort, who isn't even interesting--because they say she's an idiot," she added with the wisdom of people not in love who believe a man of sense should be unhappy only over a person who is worth it; which is rather like being surprised that anyone should condescend to suffer from cholera because of so small a creature as the comma bacillus.

pretentiousness is closely allied to stupidity and that simplicity has a subtle but agreeable flavour.

La lectura está en el umbral de la vida espiritual; puede introducirnos en ella: no la constituye.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness, which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

C'est la vie qui peu à peu, cas par cas, nous permet de remarquer que ce qui est le plus important pour notre coeur, ou pour notre esprit, ne nous est pas appris par le raisonnement mais par des puissances autres.

To see how pretty an old woman once was, it is not enough just to look at each feature; they must be translated.

In later life we look at things in a more practical way, in full conformity with the rest of society, but youth was the only time in which we learned anything

Life is like that little sweetheart. We dream it and we love it in dreaming it. We should not try to live it: otherwise, like that little boy, we will plunge into stupidity, though not at one swoop, for in life everything degenerates by imperceptible nuances. At the end of ten years we no longer recognize our dreams; we deny them, we live, like a cow, for the grass we are grazing on at the moment. And who knows if our wedding with death might not lead to our conscious immortality?

The paradoxes of today are the prejudices of tomorrow.

Notre sagesse commence où celle de l'auteur finit, nous voudrions qu'il nous donnât des réponses, quand tout ce qu'il peut faire est de nous donner des désirs.

but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself

Heaven is for thee too high To know what passes there; be lowly wise. Think only what concerns thee and thy being; Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there Live, in what state, condition, or degree, Contented that thus far hath been revealed.

What is strength without a double share of wisdom?

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master spirit?

Who reads Incessantly, and to his reading brings not A spirit and judgment equal or superior, (And what he brings what needs he elsewhere seek?) Uncertain and unsettled still remains, Deep versed in books, and shallow in himself.