Wise Words: Inspirational Quotes for Wisdom

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INSPIRATIONAL SAYINGS OF WISDOM
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.―Aristotle

Wisdom is the ability to contemplate and act using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense and insight.

Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence.

Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, including several distinct approaches to assess the characteristics attributed to wisdom.

Here is a selection of wise sayings to help you make the most of your life:

A great source of power is wisdom. We learn the most from listening to other people's success and failure tales.

160 Wise quotes that will inspire you to success in life. Make the most of your life by being inspired by these sage words of advice.



INSPIRATIONAL SAYINGS OF WISDOM

Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.


It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

― Leo Tolstoy

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.


The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.


It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.


Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.


Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform, or pause and reflect.


It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much longer.


Don't waste your time with explanations: people only hear what they want to hear.

― Paulo Coelho

The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.

― Socrates

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.

― Albert Einstein

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.


The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

― Albert Einstein

In a good bookroom you feel in some mysterious way that you are absorbing the wisdom contained in all the books through your skin, without even opening them.

― Mark Twain

The past has no power over the present moment.

― Eckhart Tolle

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

― Aristotle

I'm not young enough to know everything.

― J.M. Barrie

Any fool can know. The point is to understand.

― Albert Einstein

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

― Truman Capote

Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver and gold.

― Bob Marley


Think before you speak. Read before you think.

― Fran Lebowitz

Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.

― Jimi Hendrix

The best index to a person's character is how he treats people who can't do him any good, and how he treats people who can't fight back.

― Abigail Van Buren

You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.

― Sharon Salzberg

Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

― Isaac Asimov

We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.

― Leo Tolstoy

Even strength must bow to wisdom sometimes.

― Rick Riordan

Turn your wounds into wisdom.

― Oprah Winfrey

The mind once enlightened cannot again become dark.

― Thomas Paine

There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man.

― Patrick Rothfuss

I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine.

― Bruce Lee

Angry people are not always wise.


The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.


There are moments when troubles enter our lives and we can do nothing to avoid them. But they are there for a reason. Only when we have overcome them will we understand why they were there.


By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

― Confucius

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.

― Voltaire

We learn from failure, not from success!

― Bram Stoker

Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.

― Rumi

He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.

― Confucius

Let no man pull you so low as to hate him.

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?

― John Keats

Perhaps the rare and simple pleasure of being seen for what one is compensates for the misery of being it.

― Margaret Drabble

The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.

― Marcus Aurelius

We live in an age when unnecessary things are our only necessities.


Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.

― Thomas Jefferson

All knowledge hurts.

― Cassandra Clare

It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.

― George R.R. Martin

Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.

― Socrates

The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.

― Oscar Wilde

Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one's mistakes.

― Oscar Wilde


A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

― Francis Bacon

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

― Anne Bradstreet

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.

― Lao Tzu

Having children makes you no more a parent than having a piano makes you a pianist.

― Michael Levine

If you don't know where you are going, any road will get you there.

― Lewis Carroll

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

― Henry David Thoreau

The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.

― Theodore Roosevelt

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

― Jim Elliot

It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.


The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

― William Arthur Ward

The essence of being human is that one does not seek perfection.

― George Orwell

Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.

― John Wooden

Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.

― Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

― Carl Jung

I ask not for any crown. But that which all may win; Nor try to conquer any world, Except the one within.

― Louisa May Alcott

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.

― Elizabeth Gaskell

A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.

― John C. Maxwell

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.

― Henry Ford

Honesty is the best policy.

― Benjamin Franklin


People who know little are usually great talkers, while men who know much say little.

― Jean Jacques Rousseau

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

― Sigmund Freud

If we encounter a man of rare intellect, we should ask him what books he reads.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.

― Theodore Roosevelt

We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.

― Martin Luther King Jr.

Slow and steady wins the race.

― Robert Lloyd

Don't sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there's nothing else you can give and nobody will care for you.

― Karl Lagerfeld

Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.

― Thomas A. Edison

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

― Alfred Lord Tennyson

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

― Saint Augustine

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

― J.R.R. Tolkien

It is impossible to love and to be wise.

― Francis Bacon

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

― Marcel Proust

Wise? No, I simply learned to think.

― Christopher Paolini

Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.


Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.

― Carl Gustav Jung

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

― Epictetus

The art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.

― William James

Start with what is right rather than what is acceptable.

― Franz Kafka

You will not be punished for your anger; you will be punished by your anger.

― Buddha

Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.

Jim Rohn

A wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.

― Baltasar Gracian

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

― John Burroughs

There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart.

― Charles Dickens

Today's mighty oak is just yesterday's nut, that held its ground.

― David Icke

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

― Ernest Hemingway

Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there.

― Will Rogers

Employ your time in improving yourself by other men's writings so that you shall come easily by what others have labored hard for.

― Socrates

Commitment is an act, not a word.

― Jean-Paul Sartre

No man is poor who has a Godly mother.

― Abraham Lincoln

Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.

― Anton Chekhov


Wisdom... comes not from age, but from education and learning.

― Anton Chekhov

The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.

― Oliver Wendell Holmes

A smart person knows how to talk. A wise person knows when to be silent.

― Roy T. Bennett

Always be a first rate version of yourself, and not a second rate version of someone else.

― Judy Garland

The man of wisdom is never of two minds; the man of benevolence never worries; the man of courage is never afraid.

― Confucius

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

― Horace

Wisdom comes to us when it can no longer do any good.

― Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Cleverness is not wisdom.

― Euripides

Only the wisest and stupidest of men never change.

― Confucius

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

― William Cowper

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

― Thomas Szasz

A fool flatters himself, a wise man flatters the fool.

― Edward Robert Bulwer-Lytton

No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.

― Theodore Roosevelt

Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.

― David Starr Jordan

Hide not your talents, they for use were made, What's a sundial in the shade?


Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

― Thomas J. Watson

The small wisdom is like water in a glass: clear, transparent, pure. The great wisdom is like the water in the sea: dark, mysterious, impenetrable.

― Rabindranath Tagore

Man's wisdom is his best friend; folly his worst enemy.

― William Temple

A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.

― Buddha

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

― Herb Caen

Water is the softest thing, yet it can penetrate mountains and earth. This shows clearly the principle of
softness overcoming hardness.

― Lao Tzu

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.

― Khalil Gibran

It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.

― Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

― Sophocles

The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

To acquire knowledge, one must study; but to acquire wisdom, one must observe.

― Marilyn vos Savant

A desire not to butt into other people's business is at least eighty percent of all human wisdom.

― Robert A. Heinlein

A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.

― Gian Carlo Menotti

Don't find fault, find a remedy; anybody can complain.

― Henry Ford

Conceit spoils the finest genius.

― Louisa May Alcott

I have held many things in my hands, and I have lost them all; but whatever I have placed in God's hands, that I still possess.


The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.

― Dante Alighieri

Experience is the father, and memory the mother of wisdom.


How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!

― Homer

Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Time flows away like the water in the river.

― Confucius

Anger exceeding limits causes fear and excessive kindness eliminates respect.

― Euripides

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

― Dale Carnegie

Don't wish it was easier wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenge wish for more wisdom.

― Jim Rohn



Quotes of wisdom about life

Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

― Albert Einstein

Step with care and great tact, and remember that Life's a Great Balancing Act.

― Dr. Seuss

The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.

― Isaac Asimov

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

― John Lennon

Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.

― Leo Buscaglia

Learn to light a candle in the darkest moments of someone's life. Be the light that helps others see; it is what gives life its deepest significance.

― Roy T. Bennett

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hold fast to dreams. For if dreams die. Life is a broken-winged bird. That cannot fly.

― Langston Hughes

Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two my life moves.

― Nisargadatta Maharaj

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

― Socrates

The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

― Paulo Coelho

Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

― Thomas A. Edison

Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.

― William Stafford

The unexamined life is not worth living.

― Socrates

You do not write your life with words...You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.

― Patrick Ness

Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can't help them, at least don't hurt them.

― Dalai Lama

Remember your dreams and fight for them. You must know what you want from life. There is just one thing that makes your dream become impossible: the fear of failure.

― Paulo Coelho

There are three constants in life; change, choice and principles.

― Stephen Covey

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

― Soren Kierkegaard

God gave us the gift of life; it is up to us to give ourselves the gift of living well.

― Voltaire

Life is a daring adventure or nothing at all.

― Helen Keller

We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.


Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive.

― Elbert Hubbard

Each life is made up of mistakes and learning, waiting and growing, practicing patience and being persistent.

― Billy Graham

Life would be tragic if it weren't funny.

― Stephen Hawking

In the end, it's not the years in your life that count. It's the life in your years.

― Abraham Lincoln

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

― Confucius
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