Quotes About Wisdom

The final delusion is the belief that one has lost all delusion.

Old age isn't so bad when you consider the alternative.

Old age is not so bad when you consider the alternatives.

Nothing moves an older man more than a confession of inexperience from a younger, particularly if the latter be his social superior.

Prince Edward confirmed the sentence; but he was reflecting deeply and beginning silently to form views as to how a man destined to great responsibilities should behave. To listen before speaking, to inform yourself before judging, to understand before deciding, and to remember always that there were to be found in every man the springs both of the highest as well as the lowest actions: these, for a sovereign, were the first steps towards wisdom.

The Creator was immensely wise and charitable when He forbade us knowledge of the future, while He has vouchsafed us the delights of memory and the enchantments of hope.

I'm doing the best I can. Getting old, that's what it is. I'll be fifty-three at the feast of Saint Michael. I'm no longer as strong as you are, young sirs,' said the ferryman.

On lui donnait le moyen de se sauver seul. Tout homme sensé, à qui l'on fait une proposition de cette sorte, la considère, et n'en a que plus de mérite lorsqu'il la repousse. (Le roi de fer, partie 3, ch. 6, p. 322)

Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man afraid of the light?

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than animals that know nothing.

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death than the animals that know nothing.

Besides, I myself have now for a long time ceased to look for anything more beautiful in this world, or more interesting, than the truth; or at least than the effort one is able to make towards the truth.

He is wise who at last sees in suffering only the light that it sheds on his soul; and whose eyes never rest on the shadow it casts upon those who have sent it towards him. And wiser still is the man to whom sorrow and joy not only bring increase of consciousness, but also the knowledge that something exists superior to consciousness even. To have reached this point is to reach the summit of inward life, whence at last we look down on the flames whose light has helped our ascent.

Unless we close our eyes we are always deceived.

He who knows himself is wise; yet have we no sooner acquired real consciousness of our being than we learn that true wisdom is a thing that lies far deeper than consciousness. The chief gain of increased consciousness is that it unveils an ever-loftier unconsciousness, on whose heights do the sources lie of the purest wisdom.

For what are in reality the things we call 'Wisdom,' 'Virtue,' 'Heroism,' 'sublime hours,' and 'great moments of life,' but the moments when we have more or less issued forth from ourselves, and have been able to halt, be it only for an instant, on the step of one of the eternal gates whence we see that the faintest cry, the most colourless thought, and most nerveless gestures do not drop into nothingness; …

Truly they who know still know nothing if the strength of love be not theirs; for the true sage is not he who sees, but he who, seeing the furthest, has the deepest love for mankind. He who sees without loving is only straining his eyes in the darkness.

Wisdom is the lamp of love, and love is the oil of the lamp. Love, sinking deeper, grows wiser; and wisdom that springs up aloft comes ever the nearer to love. Love is the food of wisdom; wisdom the food of love; a circle of light within which those who love, clasp the hands of those who are wise.

Somos de tal naturaleza que nada nos lleva tan lejos y tan alto como los impulsos de nuestros errores

I tried to lift myself above the fray; but, the higher I rose, the more I saw of the madness and the horror of it, of the justice of one cause and the infamy of the other. It is possible that one day, when time has wearied remembrance and restored the ruins, wise men will tell us that we were mistaken and that our standpoint was not lofty enough; but they will say it because they will no longer know what we know, nor will they have seen what we have seen. Maurice Maeterlinck. Nice , 1916.

Il y a parfois du côté de l'ombre des vérités tout aussi intéressantes que du côté de la lumière.

Perhaps the truth is simply that one would need many lives to enter each realm of experience with the total abandon it demands.

We speak of 'inspiration,' and the word should be taken literally. There really is inspiration and expiration of Being.