Quotes About Wisdom

A short saying oft contains much wisdom.

— Sophocles

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

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

— William Shakespeare

Caution is the eldest child of wisdom.

— Victor Hugo

Wisdom comes by disillusionment.

— George Santayana

It is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

— Henry David Thoreau

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

— Horace

Wisdom at times is found in folly.

— Horace

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.

— Socrates

In order to act wisely it is not enough to be wise.

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure.  We get very little wisdom from success, you know.

— William Saroyan

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

— Marcel Proust

Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.

— Baltasar Gracian

Reason is a weak antagonist against love.

— Madeleine de Scudery

Who is wise?  He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful?  He that governs his passions.  Who is rich?  He that is content.  Who is that?  Nobody.

— Benjamin Franklin

If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.

— Cyril Connolly

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there, lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid.  She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never dit down on a cold one anymore.

— Mark Twain

Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.

— Theodore Roosevelt

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

— William James

It is better to be wise than to seem wise.

— Origen

Wisdom is greater than knowledge, for wisdom includes knowledge and the due use of it.

— Joseph Burritt Sevelli Capponi

Everyone complains of his memory, but no one complains of his judgment.

— Francois de La Rochefoucauld