Quotes on Wisdom


"Wisdom Surpasses Knowledge"
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.
Sandra Carey

"When The Scoffer Is Punished, The Naive Becomes Wise"
Wise men learn more from fools than fools from the wise.
Cato

"The Mind's Highest Good"
The mind's highest good is the knowledge of God.
Baruch Spinoza

"Learn The Easy Way"
Wise men learn by others' harms; fools by their own 
Benjamin Franklin

"Use Your Noggin"

Some men covet knowledge out of a natural curiosity and inquisitive temper;
some to entertain the mind with variety and delight;
some for ornament and reputation;
some for victory and contention;
many for lucre and a livelihood;
and but few for employing the Divine gift of reason to the use and benefit of mankind.
Francis Bacon

"Wake Up And Smell The Coffee"
When a man is getting better he understands more and more clearly the evil that is still left in him. When a man is getting worse, he understands his own badness less and less. A moderately bad man knows he is not very good: a thoroughly bad man thinks he is all right. This is common sense, really. You understand sleep when you are awake, not while you are sleeping. You can see mistakes in arithmetic when your mind is working properly: while you are making them you cannot see them. You can understand the nature of drunkenness when you are sober, not when you are drunk. Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.
C.S. Lewis

"Remember Who's Talking"

When the fox preaches, look to your geese.
German saying

"Judgment Plus Motives"
Even honorable motives of action, unless directed by judgment, are followed by disastrous results.
Otho

"Use Your Noggin"
He who will not reason is a bigot; he who cannot is a fool; and he who dares not is a slave.
Sir William Drummond

"The Great Cataract of Nonsense"
Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the uneducated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.
C.S. Lewis

"But On Every Word That Proceeds From The Mouth Of God"
We're drowning in information and starving for knowledge
Rutherford D. Rogers

"Batten Down The Hatches"
He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand...In fair Weather prepare for foul.
Seneca The Younger...Thomas Fuller

"Quality Not Quantity"
'Tis not knowing much, but what is useful, that makes a wise man.
Thomas Fuller

"Aged To Perfection"
Believers in progress rightly note that in the world of machines the new model supersedes the old; from this they falsely infer a similar kind of supersession in such things a virtue and wisdom
C.S. Lewis

"Ethical Midgets"
We have too many men of science, too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom , power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical midgets. We know more about war than we know of peace, more about killing than we know about living.
Omar N. Bradley

"Good Old Soul-Food"
...newness is no virtue and oldness is no vice. Truth and beauty and goodness are not determined by when they exist. Nothing is inferior for being old, and nothing is valuable for being modern. This has freed me from the tyranny of novelty and opened for me the wisdom of the ages. To this day I get most of my soul-food from centuries ago.
John Piper

"Character Counts"
To educate a person in mind and not in morals is to educate a menace to society.
Theodore Roosevelt

 

"Use Knowledge Well"
It is not a question how much a man knows, but what use he can make of what he knows.
Josiah Gilbert Holland

"Think and See Clearly"
Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion - all in one.
John Ruskin

"Which Way Is The Wind Blowing?"
Neither believe nor reject anything because any other persons or description of persons have rejected or believed it.
Thomas Jefferson

"Stop Philosophizing, Start Healing"

Vain is the word of a philosopher which does not heal any suffering of man.
Anonymous

"Because It's What Counts"
He that lives well is learned enough.
George Herbert

"Conduits Not Originators"
Learned men are the cisterns of knowledge, not the fountain-heads.
James Northcote

"Double Checking"
Look twice before you leap.
Charlotte Bronte

"Not All"
Do not all you can; spend not all you have; believe not all you hear; and tell not all you know.
Henry G. Bohn

"Fix Only What's Broken"
If it works, don't fix it.
Paul Dickson


"Slow Yeses. Quick No's."
Half the trouble in this world comes from saying “yes” too quick, and “no” not soon enough.
 Saying

"A Spiritual World So Near"
The trees reflected in the river – they are unconscious of a spiritual world so near them. So are we.
Nathaniel Hawthorne

"Captivating Trifles"
Light minds are captivated by trifles.
Ovid

"Tinged With Triviality"
I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts shall be tinged with triviality.
Henry David Thoreau

"The Right Direction"
You’ve got to think about “big things” while you’re doing small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.
Alvin Toffler

"Supply And Demand"
The Worth of a thing is best known by the want of it.
James Kelly

"See What's Coming"
Wisdom consist of the anticipation of consequences.
Norman Cousins

"See The Miraculous"
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Our Awesome Lord"
The awe of God is wisdom.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

"God's Perspective"
Wisdom is the ability to look at all things from the point of view of God.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

"Pursuing The Best"
Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means.
Francis Hutcheson

"The Acquisition of Wisdom"
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
Solomon Ibn Gabirol.

"Know And Do"
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.
David Starr Jordan

"Wise For Oneself"
It is easier to be wise for others than for oneself.
La Rochefoucauld

"Weighted Factors"
Of the several factors that contribute to wisdom, I should put first a sense of proportion: the capacity to take account of all the important factors in a problem and to attach to each its due weight.
Bertrand Russell

"Keep Going"
Many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already.
Seneca the Younger

"Know What Is Useful"
Tis not knowing much, but what is useful, that makes a wise Man.
Thomas Fuller

"Wisdom Must Be Absorbed"
Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom.
Hermann Hesse

"Knowledge Waxing As Wisdom Wanes"
Ours is a world in which knowledge accumulates and wisdom decays.
Aldous Huxley

"Knowledge & Wisdom Defined"
Knowledge is organized and accessible information; wisdom is knowledge used effectively in the service of worthy ends.
Anonymous

"Finally"
The wise does at once what the fool does at last.
Baltasar Gracian

"Fire Without Light"
Zeal without Knowledge is Fire without Light.
Thomas Fuller

"Decision Time? Pray. And Use Your Head."
Why did the Lord give us brains and say so much about gaining wisdom if all we are really suppose to do is call on the Lord to tell us what to do in a thousand different non-moral decisions...Don't think the convenient way is always God's way of making a more comfortable way for you...don't assume that the relative ease or difficulty of a new situation is God's way of telling you to do one thing or the other. Remember, God's will for your life is your sanctification, and God tends to use discomfort and trials more than comfort and ease to make us holy...the whole fleece approach to life is dangerously close to violating Jesus' admonition, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test" (Mt. 4:7)...Gideon's request was probably an indication of cowardice and unbelief more than faithful, wise decision making...Listen to your gut or not, but don't make it an extra-special factor in your decision making, and don't think you need that peaceful, easy feeling before you can make up your mind. On a related note, we need to be careful that we don't absolutize our decisions just because we pray about them. Church boards or denominational committees are often guilty of putting their decisions out of reach because 'the matter was bathed in prayer' 
Kevin DeYoung

"Cry Aloud for Understanding"
Isn't it interesting that we are never told in Scripture to ask God to reveal the future or to show us His plan for our lives? But we are told - in no uncertain terms- to call out for insight and to cry aloud for understanding. In other words, God says, 'Don't ask to see all the plans I've made for you. Ask Me for wisdom so you'll know how to live according to My Book."
Kevin DeYoung