Quotes About Wisdom

Ha! I like the world, kid. I like its sense of humour. I like the way it gets its own back on the know-it-alls and the stuck-ups and the well-meaners.

But that's always the way, isn't it? It's easy to be sensible for other people, but you can't always be sensible for yourself.

And as for the enlightened, one can only pity them the deceptions of their muses.

Learning something new is fun.

The choice of this disciple to be an apostle supplies another illustration of Christ's disregard of prudential wisdom. An ex-zealot was not a safe man to make an apostle of, for he might be the means of rendering Jesus and His followers objects of political suspicion. But the Author of our faith was willing to take the risk. He expected to gain many disciples from the dangerous classes as well as from the despised, and He would have them, too, represented among the twelve.

He spoke as if He rather sympathized with the feeling in favor of celibacy,--as if to abstain from marriage were the better and wiser way, and only not to be required of men because for the majority it was impracticable. "But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given.

Ambition, selfishness, worldly wisdom, courtly arts, have too often procured thrones for false apostles, who never forsook any thing for Christ.

And the gods did not kill for hubris-for hubris, they let you live long enough to learn.

Reading teaches me the answers to the problems I haven't had yet, or to problems I didn't even know how to describe. And when I feel less alone with what troubles me, it is easier to find solutions. A book to me is like a friend, a shelter, advice, an argument with someone who cares enough to argue with me for a better answer than the one we both already have. Books aren't just a door to another world-each book is part of a door to the whole world, a door that always has more behind it.

Man — a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal.

Have we not already seen enough of the fallacy and extravagance of those idle theories which have amused us with promises of an exemption from the imperfections, weaknesses and evils incident to society in every shape? Is it not time to awake from the deceitful dream of a golden age, and to adopt as a practical maxim for the direction of our political conduct that we, as well as the other inhabitants of the globe, are yet remote from the happy empire of perfect wisdom and perfect virtue?

Caution and investigation are a necessary armor against error and imposition.

Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred.

So numerous indeed and so powerful are the causes which serve to give a false bias to the judgment, that we, upon many occasions, see wise and good men on the wrong as well as on the right side of questions of the first magnitude to society. This circumstance, if duly attended to, would furnish a lesson of moderation to those who are ever so much persuaded of their being in the right in any controversy.

It is a received and well-founded maxim, that where no other circumstances affect the case, the greater the power is, the shorter ought to be its duration; and, conversely, the smaller the power, the more safely may its duration be protracted

the wisdom of the precaution is evident from the cry which has been raised against it; as that very cry betrays a disposition to question the great and essential truth which it is manifestly the object of that provision to declare.

A prudent silence will frequently be taken for wisdom and a sentence or two cautiously thrown in will sometimes gain the palm of knowledge, while a man well informed but indiscreet and unreserved will not uncommonly talk himself out of all consideration and weight.

They formed it almost as soon as they had a political existence; nay, at a time when their habitations were in flames, when many of their citizens were bleeding, and when the progress of hostility and desolation left little room for those calm and mature inquiries and reflections which must ever precede the formation of a wise and well-balanced government for a free people.

Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.

Life has taught me to think, but thinking has not taught me to live.

One must open men's eyes, not tear them out.

My experience has taught me that a man who has no vices has d——d few virtues. Good-day.

In verità, qual è l'uomo che osa dire: "Questo è passato e quello è ancora da venire, questa è realtà e quello è un sogno, questa è una cosa e quella è un'altra"! Ma ogni tanto un lembo del velo che nasconde i misteri della vita si muove, e uno sguardo portentoso ci è concesso, dietro le apparenze che ci circondano.

No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.