Quotes About Wisdom

Good sense is the most evenly distributed thing in the world; for everyone believes himself to be so well provided with it that even those who are the hardest to please in every other way do not usually want more of it than they already have.

Man, being finite in nature can only have knowledge perfectness of which is limited.

Le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée : car chacun pense en être si bien pourvu, que ceux même qui sont les plus difficiles à contenter en toute autre chose, n'ont point coutume d'en désirer plus qu'ils en ont.

I had always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right path in life, and proceed it in with confidence.

I will follow this strategy until I discover something that is certain or, at least, until I discover that it is certain only that nothing is certain.

On the other hand, I compared the disquisitions of the ancient moralists to very towering and magnificent palaces with no better foundation than sand and mud:

Even if all knowledge could be found in books, where it is mixed in with so many useless things and confusingly heaped in such large volumes, it would take longer to read those books than we have to live in this life and more effort to select the useful things than to find them oneself

But as soon as I had finished my course of study, at which time it is usual to be admitted to the ranks of the well educated, I completely changed my opinion, for I found myself bogged down in so many doubts and errors, that it seemed to me that having set out to become learned, I had derived no benefit from my studies, other than that of progressively revealing to myself how ignorant I was.

it appears to me that I have discovered many truths more useful and more important than all I had before learned, or even had expected to learn.

For 'tis not enough to have good faculties, but the principal is, to apply them well.

we ought also to consider as false all that is doubtful.

One cannot conceive anything so strange and so implausible that it has not already been said by one philosopher or another.

they who make pretensions to philosophy are often less wise and reasonable than others who never applied themselves to the study

entre plusieurs opinions également reçues, je ne choisissais que les plus modérées, tant à cause que ce sont toujours les plus commodes pour la pratique, et vraisemblablement les meilleures, tous excès ayant coutume d'être mauvais, comme aussi afin de me détourner moins du vrai chemin, en cas que je faillisse, que si, ayant choisi l'un des extrêmes, c'eût été l'autre qu'il fallu suivre. (3e partie, para 2)

c'est une vérité très certaine que, lorsqu'il n'est pas en notre pouvoir de discerner les plus vraies opinions, nous devons suivre les plus probables partie 3, para 3)

He cannot be a deceiver, since the light of nature teaches us that fraud and deception necessarily proceed from some defect.

Nothing can be imagined which is too strange or incredible to have been said by some philosopher.

engaging in conversation with the most cultivated minds of past centuries who had composed them, or rather, taking part in a well-conducted dialogue in which such minds reveal to us only the best of their thoughts;

la lectura de todos los buenos libros es como una conversación con los mejores ingenios de los pasados siglos

Right understanding is the most equally divided thing in the World; for every one beleevs himself so well stor'd with it, that even those who in all other things are the hardest to be pleas'd, seldom desire more of it then they have; wherein it is not likely that all Men are deceived:

hay pocas personas que consientan en decir lo que creen, sino también porque muchas lo ignoran, pues el acto del pensamiento, por el cual uno cree una cosa, es diferente de aquel otro por el cual uno conoce que la cree

y que dice que nada hay en el entendimiento que no haya estado antes en el sentido

We should totally focus the vision of natural intelligence on the smallest and easiest things, and we should dwell on them for a long time, so long, until we have become accustomed to intuiting the truth distinctly and perspicuously.

Je donnerais tout ce que je sais pour la moitié de ce que je ne sais pas.