Quotes About Wisdom

The Swiss had always slanted against the grain, always pushed against the received wisdom that tended to wash over the rest of Europe in waves of intellectual fashion, everything from details of fashion to participation in world wars.

No one knows anything. But I know less than that, because I thought I knew something, but it was wrong. So I know negatively. I unknow.

Wisdom is always wont to arrive late, and to be a little approximate on first possession. supposed Francis Spufford

Knowledge is important, but much more important is the use toward which it is put. This depends on the heart and mind of the one who uses it.

I was old the day I was born and I'll be young the day I die.

Every age had its losses, they said, even youth, which lost first childhood, then youth too. And all first things were vivid, including losses. "Just keep learning," the old woman said.

Most of [the alchemists] were poor; many all but unknown in their own time, many died and saw no fruit of their labours… Of some the very names are forgotten. But though their names be dead, their works live, and grow and spread over ever fresh generations of youth, showing them fresh steps towards that temple of wisdom which is the knowledge of things as they are.

Everybody had been in their twenties then; well, round about thirty. Now, from round about seventy, all those years of maturity or the prime of life or whatever you called it looked like an interval between two bouts of vomiting.

Lyall felt he could not say which of two things was harder to put up with, the Abbot's conversational style, with its bland coherence and assumption of severely limited cogitative powers in the hearer, or his recurrent look of pleased surprise as each fresh piece of evidence of his wisdom or moral worth turned up, but between them they were likely to implant in certain minds a hardy seed of revolt.

Bowen looked nervously about for peasants. It would be unendurable if they all turned out to be full of instinctive wisdom and natural good manners and unself-conscious grace and a deep, articulate understanding of death.

I am too old a hand to be put off pleasure by even the certain prospect of not enjoying it.

If a man can hear the truth he's spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools..........

Gurus Enable you to see new things. The trouble with Gurus is that you can rarely see beyond them.

Life teaches me a hundred things every day, and I forget ninety-nine of them, sometimes all hundred of them. I forgot once again never to take anything for granted

Life teaches me a hundred things every day, and I forget ninety-nine of them, sometimes all hundred of them.

ViaÈ›a este cel mai bun dasc?l .În majoritatea cazurilor ,viaÈ›a nu-È›i vorbeÈ™te ,ci te împinge de la spate .De fiecare dat? e ca È™i cum viaÈ›a È›i-ar spune :TrezeÈ™te-te ,vreau s? înveÈ›i ceva .

No worse fate can befall a young man or woman than becoming prematurely entrenched in prudence and negation.

Yes, he answered, it's a strain being witty at my age. I'm giving it up.

Besides, beyond question, it takes a certain degree of brainlessness to remain permanently contented with oneself and with everything.

God preserve me from growing wise! Yes, I intend to mumble toothlessly to my deathbed bystanders: God preserve me from growing wise!

The elderly remember bygone days and dates, they have a wonderful way of hoarding in their heads all manner of trifles as if they were valuable, as if they might one day stand them in good stead.

De sier hun er melle firti og femti, men hun er mindst seksti, ropte han, og er slikt menneskelig? Gå og vifte med næseborene akkruat som med kaninører når hun er i støvets år og alder.

Frank said nothing. Which was a good answer.

Men kvinden hun var som alle vise visste før: uendelig ringe i ævner, men rik i uansvarlighet, i forfængelighet, i letfærdighet. Hun har meget av barnet, men intet av dets uskyld.