Quotes About Wisdom

Do not try to seem wise to others. If you want to live a wise life, live it on your own terms and in your own eyes.

We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free.

Don't live by your own rules, but in harmony with nature

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

If you seek Truth, you will not seek to gain a victory by every possible means; and when you have found Truth, you need not fear being defeated.

God save me from fools with a little philosophy—no one is more difficult to reach.

If they are wise, do not quarrel with them; if they are fools, ignore them.

Why do you want to read anyway – for the sake of amusement or mere erudition? Those are poor, fatuous pretexts. Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn't make you peaceful, what good is it?

Very little is needed for everything to be upset and ruined, only a slight lapse in reason.

For sheep don't throw up the grass to show the shepherds how much they have eaten; but, inwardly digesting their food, they outwardly produce wool and milk.

Freedom is not archived by satisfying desire, but by eliminating it.

The philosopher's school, ye men, is a surgery: you ought not to go out of it with pleasure, but with pain. For you are not in sound health when you enter.

If you want to improve, you must be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

If a man has reported to you, that a certain person speaks ill of you, do not make any defense to what has been told you: but reply, The man did not know the rest of my faults, for he would not have mentioned these only.

Let silence be your general rule; or say only what is necessary and in few words.

When a man is proud because he can understand and explain the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself, if Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this man would have had nothing to be proud of.

As for us, we behave like a herd of deer. When they flee from the huntsman's feathers in affright, which way do they turn? What haven of safety do they make for? Why, they rush upon the nets! And thus they perish by confounding what they should fear with that wherein no danger lies. . . . Not death or pain is to be feared, but the fear of death or pain. Well said the poet therefore:— Death has no terror; only a Death of shame!

It is not events that disturb people, it is their judgements concerning them.

28. If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?

Reading should serve the goal of attaining peace; if it doesn't make you peaceful, what good is it?

What saith Antisthenes? Hast thou never heard?— It is a kingly thing, O Cyrus, to do well and to be evil spoken of.

He who exercises wisdom, exercises the knowledge which is about God.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

Is then the fruit of a fig-tree not perfect suddenly and in one hour, and would you possess the fruit of a man's mind in so short a time and so easily?