Quotes About Wisdom

a good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable - books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life.

The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read.

To agree without understanding is inane. To disagree without understanding is impudent.

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom in learning from books as well as from nature.

The ability to retain a child's view of the world with at the same time a mature understanding of what it means to retain it, is extremely rare - and a person who has these qualities is likely to be able to contribute something really important to our thinking.

The complexities of adult life get in the way of the truth. The great philosophers have always been able to clear away the complexities and see simple distinctions - simple once they are stated, vastly difficult before. If we are to follow them we too must be childishly simple in our questions - and maturely wise in our replies..

If a book is easy and fits nicely into all your language conventions and thought forms, then you probably will not grow much from reading it. It may be entertaining, but not enlarging to your understanding. It's the hard books that count. Raking is easy, but all you get is leaves; digging is hard, but you might find diamonds.

The truly great books are the few books that are over everybody's head all of the time.

There have always been literate ignoramuses who have read too widely and not well. The Greeks had a name for such a mixture of learning and folly which might be applied to the bookish but poorly read of all ages. They are all sophomores .

As Winston Churchill whimsically observed, "Men occasionally stumble across the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened.

You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

Teach thy tongue to say 'I do not know' and thou shalt progress.

Reprimand not a child immediately on the offence. Wait till the irritation has been replaced by serenity.

Do not consider it proof just because it is written in books, for a liar who will deceive with his tongue will not hesitate to do the same with his pen.

Your purpose...should always be to know...the whole that was intended to be known.

Accept the truth from whatever source it comes.

Nach Wahrheit forschen, Schönes lieben, Gutes wollen, das Beste tun. Das ist die Bestimmung des Menschen.

Anybody who is 25 or 30 years old has physical scars from all sorts of things, from tuberculosis to polio. It's the same with the mind.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 2 or 8. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.

Never answer a hypothetical question.

So far as I know, anything worth hearing is not usually uttered at seven o'clock in the morning and if it is, it will generally be repeated at a more reasonable hour for a larger and more wakeful audience.

O homem deseja muitas coisas e luta por adquiri-las, crendo que sua posse lhe trará felicidade. Isso o conduz, inevitavelmente, a decepções e sofrimentos. A pessoa prudente, que sabe o que é e aquilo de que realmente necessita, evita todas as perturbações, pois está buscando o real e não coisas efêmeras.

The old Roman sentence is always valid: "Mundus vult decipi." ("The world wants to be deceived").