Quotes About Wisdom

Truth never dies.

Por abundantes que fueran los peces en el mar, se necesitaba una red o un sedal y un anzuelo, como mínimo.

The dead outnumber the living fourteen to one, and we ignore the accumulated experience of such a huge majority of mankind at our peril

Doing nothing at all is often the very wisest thing ... as the world is a ball and is turning and everything is in fact in motion all the time, doing nothing is not really doing nothing, it's allowing things to mover at their own pace

Forgive an old man. I say this here because pretty soon you get to a place where you're not sure there'll be a tomorrow, where you think I better say this now, here, because not only is time no longer on your side, you realise that it never was, that things were passing by faster than you could appreciate, and whole marvels, the quickening green of springtime, the shapeless shaped songs of unseen birds, the rising and falling of white waves, were passing without you noticing.

When you are born in one century and find yourself walking around in another there's a certain infirmity to your footing. May we all be so lucky to live long enough to see our time turn to fable.

I know now that, when you get to a grandfather's age, life takes on the qualities of comedy, with aches.

Nobody who's lived an anyway decent amount of life remembers everything.

Some things do not bear telling. I think my father knew this. I think he knew how words can sometimes flatten the deepest emotions or pin them like wild butterflies stunned out of magnificent flight, flimsiest souvenirs of what moved and coloured air like silk. Better to imagine it.

Because there were fewer sources of where to find out anything, there was more listening.

The truth turns into a story when it grows old. We all become stories in the end. So, though the narrative was flawed, the sense was of a life so lived it was epic.

Anger should be a weapon to be used discriminately, not a weakness and a loss of control.

I hate the truth!" "You don't need to like it. It's something we live with, like water or light.

You're supposed to gain things as you grow older in return for the things that you lose. But what had she gained? Dignity? She hadn't got that. Peace? No. Wisdom? It seemed unlikely. And what had she lost? Beauty, youth, innocence, possibility. Your past grows longer and your future shrinks. And you lose your parents and your children – often at the same time so that you go from being daughter and mother to being neither. What are you then?

The lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

Le cose, una volta pensate, che bisogno c'è di dirle?

A prince being thus obliged to know well how to act as a beast must imitate the fox and the lion, for the lion cannot protect himself from traps, and the fox cannot defend himself from wolves. One must therefore be a fox to recognize traps, and a lion to frighten wolves.

There are three classes of intellects: one which comprehends by itself; another which appreciates what others comprehend; and a third which neither comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others; the first is the most excellent, the second is good, the third is useless.

There are three kinds of intelligence: one kind understands things for itself, the other appreciates what others can understand, the third understands neither for itself nor through others. This first kind is excellent, the second good, and the third kind useless.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

A wise man will see to it that his acts always seem voluntary and not done by compulsion, however much he may be compelled by necessity.

A prudent man should always follow in the path trodden by great men and imitate those who are most excellent, so that if he does not attain to their greatness, at any rate he will get some tinge of it.

Spune nu doar acela care îl ?tie pe da. Îns? el, care ?tie totul, la nu ?i da are foile rupte.

A strong and bitter book-sickness floods one's soul. How ignominious to be strapped to this ponderous mass of paper, print, and dead men's sentiments!