Quotes About Wisdom

In Buddhism, compassion always goes with wisdom. Compassion without wisdom is not understood to be true compassion, and wisdom without compassion is not true wisdom.

The notion of justice creates an irreparable split between the just and the unjust, the righteous and the unrighteous, whereas the notion of wisdom evokes the sense of equality and solidarity.

Love and justice are like water and fire -- although both are necessary, they go together with difficulty. Compassion and wisdom are like heat and light -- although different, they work together in complementarity.

Buddhist wisdom implies the affirmation or recognition of everything and everyone in their distinctiveness or in their suchness.

Zen is a double-edged sword, killing words and thoughts, yet at the same time, giving them life. Although beyond human intellect and philosophy, Zen is their root and source.

In the process of falling to the earth, seeping into the ground, and then emerging, water obtain information from various minerals and becomes wise.

There's no advantage to hurrying through life." -Shikamaru Nara

It's foolish to fear what we've yet to see and know.

Drum lest mit Maß, doch lest genug, Dann wird's euch wohl ergehen. Bloß Bücher fressen macht nicht klug. Man muss sie auch verstehen.

Wenn man erst einmal weiß, Weiß man auch, daß man weiß, Und wüßte lieber nicht. Aber zu spät. Schon weiß man, daß auch Die Hoffnung nie wieder, Nie wieder einkehrt, nie wieder; Sondern quer übers Meer, ade, Denen zusegelt, die Noch nicht wissen, Noch etwa wissen, Daß es etwas Zu wissen Gibt.

The educated do not share a common body of information, but a common state of mind

The nonsense that charms is close to sense.

Only the broken-hearted know the truth about love.

The wisdom of age: don't stop walking.

At sixty, I know little more about wisdom than I did at thirty, but I know a great deal more about folly.

If suffering brought wisdom, the dentist

The real secrets are not the ones I tell.

Forget what hurt you but never forget what it thaught you.

Wisdom cannot prevent a fall, but may cushion it

In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth

as astronomer Carl Sagan once aptly put it, you do not want to keep your mind so open that your brain is likely to fall out.

realize that by "philosophers" Epictetus doesn't mean professional academics (trust me, you don't want to make a habit of socializing mostly with them), but rather people who are interested in following virtue and cultivating their character.

Now here are three stages of wisdom: the unwise person blames other people for what are, in the end, her own judgments about things; the person who is making progress does not blame others, but only herself; the wise person does not blame even herself.

Stoicism is about developing the tools to deal as effectively as humanly possible with the ensuing conflicts, does not demand perfection, and does not provide specific answers: those are for fools (Epictetus's word) who think the world is black and white, good versus evil, where it is always possible to clearly tell the good guys from the bad guys. That is not the world we live in, and to pretend otherwise is more than a bit dangerous and not at all wise.