Quotes About Wisdom

Most people are willing to pay more to be amused than to be educated.

Teaching philosophy isn't what I do. Teaching philosophy is, sort of, what I am.

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness.

A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion.

the question… as always, the question is how to look at the sun without being blinded.

We call people rats, who desert a sinking ship; but in some cases the rat has the wisdom of the situation.

And even if by chance he were to utter the perfect truth, he would himself not know it, for all is but a woven web of guesses.

Part of waging war is knowing when you're outgunned.

Ars moriendi ars vivendi est: the art of dying is the art of living. I had read that somewhere in my postgraduate days and remembered it as I sat at his side. Jason died as he had lived, in the heroic pursuit of understanding. His gift to the world would be the fruits of that understanding, not hoarded but freely distributed.

The easiest kind of prophecy," he said, "is the kind that predicts things that have already happened.

Half of your mastery of power comes from what you do NOT do, what you do not ALLOW yourself to get dragged into.

Oysters open completely when the moon is full; and when the crab sees one it throws a piece of stone or seaweed into it and the oyster cannot close again so that it serves the crab for meat. Such is the fate of him who opens his mouth too much and thereby puts himself at the mercy of the listener. Leonardo

The Laws of Human Nature, 1: Master Your Emotional Self—The Law of Irrationality

When I left him, I reasoned thus with myself: I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. —Socrates

the goal of an apprenticeship is not money, a good position, a title, or a diploma, but rather the transformation of your mind and character—the first transformation on the way to mastery.

It is occasionally used to imitate the court jester, who plays the fool but knows he is smarter than the king. He talks and talks and entertains, and no one suspects that he is more than just a fool.

Pindar wrote, "Become who you are by learning who you are.

Power cannot accrue to those who squander their treasure of words.

The more we lose ourselves in predigested theories and past experiences, the more inappropriate and delusional our response.

El poder es, en esencia, amoral. Una de las habilidades más importantes que deberá adquirir es la capacidad de aprender a ver circunstancias, en lugar de, simplemente, el bien o el mal.

the powerful are often reluctant to take advice

The first step toward becoming rational is to understand our fundamental irrationality. There are two factors that should render this more palatable to our egos: nobody is exempt from the irresistible effect of emotions on the mind, not even the wisest among us; and to some extent irrationality is a function of the structure of our brains and is wired into our very nature by the way we process emotions. Being irrational is almost beyond our control.

Rationality is not a power you are born with but one you acquire through training and practice.

Never discriminate as to whom you study and whom you trust. Never trust anyone completely and study everyone, including friends and loved ones.