Quotes About Wisdom

I would rather have to extract information from the devil himself than from a child.

Think small.... If you can't think small, try philosophy or social criticism.

Believe you and I sing tiny and wise and could if we had to eat stone and go on.

Never write a poem about anything that ought to have a poem written about it, a wise man once told me.

Power is dangerous unless you have humility.

Yet we had fingered the prefrontal cortex. This region was considered the seat of human reason, the locus of forethought and wisdom and rationality and other cognitive functions that distinguish us from "lower" animals. But we were saying it rules our emotions, too—and that the barricade that psychology had erected between reason and emotion has no basis in fact.

Thomas Merton says, "We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!"2

Thomas à Kempis writes, "It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation."4

Important insights ought never to be limited to the group from which may arise.

Remember that the key to the Discipline of study is not reading many books, but experiencing what we do read.

Thomas à Kempis, "To have no opinion of ourselves, and to think always well and highly of others, is great wisdom and perfection.

genuinely long for abilities that are beyond yourself in order to face the demands of everyday life patiently and wisely. You—I—we—would love to have the inner resources to replace deep, destructive habits of thought with even deeper, life-giving habits of mind and heart and spirit.

He that studies only men, will get the body of knowledge without the soul; and he that studies only books, the soul without the body. He that to what he sees, adds observation, and to what he reads, reflection, is in the right road to knowledge, provided that in scrutinizing the hearts of others, he neglects not his own. —CALEB COLTON

Teach me patience, Lord, and continue to stretch my understanding of who you are and how you work in the world. Continue to cultivate within me the humility to know that your way is best. Amen. For

The truth is that there are no "masters" in the spiritual life. Mature and wise teachers, yes. But fundamentally we are all beginners receiving and giving on our knees before God and with open hands before one another. In this business no one "lords it over" another. Pay

We would do well to come to the Bible with these words ringing in our ears: 'You have heard it said . . . but I say to you . . .

As Thomas Merton says, "We do not want to be beginners. But let us be convinced of the fact that we will never be anything else but beginners, all our life!"2 Psalm

The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.

Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don't.

Keep in mind that right and wrong are not matters of opinion. They are principles we must discover and apply. They are laws of biology for intelligent species

The thing is to sift out the important sounds, little syllables and vowels that bring hints of their lost words, and not to mistake the fossil for the life, or the kiss for the love, not to mistake the fragment for the sentence.

Let not the eyes grow dim, look not back but forward; the soul must uphold itself like the sun. Let us labour to make the heart grow larger as we become older, as the spreading oak gives more shelter. That we could but take to the soul some of the greatness and the beauty of the summer!

Young man, there are some things in the world so profane that their only real value is in not knowing about them.

Brooding is for chickens, as my first-grade teacher used to say. Or maybe it was Lucifer. Homily reciters all kind of run together for me.