Quotes About Wisdom

There is hardly a mistake which in the course of our lives we have committed, but some proverb, had we known and attended to its lesson, might have saved us from it.

Chinese are noted for their aphorisms and proverbs, and they and Indians find great sources of humor in parables, which we in the West find only moderately funny, although they do combine wisdom, moralizing and a sense of perspective

Arthur W. Pink rightly warns: "The fact that a preacher has graduated with honors from some theological center is no proof that he is a man taught of the Holy Spirit. No dependence can be placed on human learning."' The

He never sat an examination in economics: his knowledge came from pondering problems and discussing them as much as from book-learning.

These virtuosi maintained that whatever has been believed by everyone, always and everywhere, is likely to be untrue.

By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.

Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one.

Books are masters who instruct us without rods or ferules, without words or anger, without bread or money. If you approach them, they are not asleep; If you seek them, they do not hide; If you blunder, they do not scold; if you are ignorant, they do not laugh at you.

In books I meet the dead as if they were alive in books I see what is yet to come... All things decay and pass in time... All fame would fall into oblivion if God had not given mortal men the book to aid them

Books appear to be the most immediate instruments of speculative delight.

Again, all who are smitten with the love of books think cheaply of the world and wealth; as Jerome says to Vigilantius: The same man cannot love both gold and books.

Come insegna Seneca ammaestrando i suoi discepoli, l'ozio senza le lettere è la morte e la tomba dell'uomo mentre ancora vive; così, per la ragione opposta, ne deduciamo che la frequentazione delle lettere e dei libri è per l'uomo la vita.

A parent always tries to protect his child's world from the harsh reality of adulthood. - Busch

Half the confusion in the world comes from not knowing how little we need.

Zen Buddhist dictum that "the opposite of a great truth is also true.

A man doesn't begin to attain wisdom until he recognizes that he is no longer indispensable.

Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.

What I cannot create, I do not understand.

You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

A good book, he had concluded, leaves you wanting to reread the book. A great book compels you to reread your own soul. Such books were for him rare and, as he aged, rarer. Still he searched, one more Ithaca for which he was forever bound.

Someone ... tell us what's important, because we no longer know.

Understand--it ALWAYS makes sense. Sense can't be avoided. If it first seems to be non-sense, wait: roots will reveal themselves.

There has been a revolution in our understanding over the last forty years, and the gains in knowledge are permanent. But we will never know everything, and that is as it should be. From the obscuring mist of the past, science has ensured that some of the mountains have emerged into clear view, but as soon as that happens the misty shadows of further peaks are glimpsed in the distance, rank upon rank: so many other heights to climb, so many mysteries to investigate.

I recall the words of Charles Darwin in his Autobiography. 'I rejoice that I have avoided controversies, and this I owe to Charles Lyell,* who…strongly advised me never to get entangled in a controversy, as it rarely did any good and caused a miserable loss of time and temper.