wisdom quotes

When you’re older you want to learn from other people.

Play not with paradoxes. That caustic which you handle in order to scorch others may happen to sear your own fingers and make them dead to the quality of things.

The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.

Our best thoughts come from others.

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don’t just want to possess it, it will find you.

It is easy to dismiss the world as ‚irrelevant,‘ or consumed by ‚paranoid anti-Americanism,‘ but perhaps not wise.

He who obtains has little. He who scatters has much.

Wisdom I know is social. She seeks her fellows. But Beauty is jealous, and illy bears the presence of a rival.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

Experience which was once claimed by the aged is now claimed exclusively by the young.

So confident am I in the intentions, as well as wisdom, of the government, that I shall always be satisfied that what is not done, either cannot, or ought not to be done.

I am not promising that God will give you everything you want. There are times when we want things that God knows would not be good for us.

Knowing that you are going to die is, I suspect, the beginning of wisdom.

All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost.

He who knows, does not speak. He who speaks, does not know.

I don’t see the wisdom in modern politicians that I once saw in men like Dean Acheson, David Bruce, or George Marshall. In my day, the northeastern establishment dominated foreign policy formulation, but the composition and distribution of our population is very different today.

Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven’t committed.

You can always tell an old soldier by the inside of his holsters and cartridge boxes. The young ones carry pistols and cartridges; the old ones, grub.

The person who doesn’t scatter the morning dew will not comb gray hairs.

Wisely, and slow. They stumble that run fast.

Be smarter than other people, just don’t tell them so.

A nation or civilization that continues to produce soft-minded men purchases its own spiritual death on the installment plan.

If you want to gather honey, don’t kick over the beehive.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

If God treats you well by teaching you a disastrous lesson, you never forget it.

The only time you really live fully is from thirty to sixty. The young are slaves to dreams; the old servants of regrets. Only the middle-aged have all their five senses in the keeping of their wits.

My grandfather was smart and had a whole lot of pride. He didn’t speak a terrible amount, but you could tell there was a ton on his mind – like a quiet acceptance of how life had turned out.

We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience.

Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain – and most fools do.

I think that there is never an indispensable leader, you know? I think that there is a time with dignity that one needs to leave.

No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.

He who possesses art and science has religion; he who does not possess them, needs religion.

If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men’s cottage princes‘ palaces.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Books are like a mirror. If an ass looks in, you can’t expect an angel to look out.

The supreme function of reason is to show man that some things are beyond reason.

Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.

Not only is there but one way of doing things rightly, but there is only one way of seeing them, and that is, seeing the whole of them.

Youth is a blunder; Manhood a struggle, Old Age a regret.

Walk while ye have the light, lest darkness come upon you.

Choose silence of all virtues, for by it you hear other men’s imperfections, and conceal your own.

He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.

Blessed is the man, who having nothing to say, abstains from giving wordy evidence of the fact.

The sum of wisdom is that time is never lost that is devoted to work.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.

A word to the wise is infuriating.

It is always wise to look ahead, but difficult to look further than you can see.

Beware of the man who does not return your blow: he neither forgives you nor allows you to forgive yourself.

If you make listening and observation your occupation you will gain much more than you can by talk.

I learned a long time ago that reality was much weirder than anyone’s imagination.

I’m considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I’ve never been bored in my life.

A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life.

To state the facts frankly is not to despair the future nor indict the past. The prudent heir takes careful inventory of his legacies and gives a faithful accounting to those whom he owes an obligation of trust.

Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.

We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.

Old age is like everything else. To make a success of it, you’ve got to start young.

Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience.