Quotes on Being Wise

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

She hoped to be wise and reasonable in time; but alas! Alas! She must confess to herself that she was not wise yet.

None of the modes by which a magistrate is appointed, popular election, the accident of the lot, or the accident of birth, affords, as far as we can perceive, much security for his being wiser than any of his neighbours. The chance of his being wiser than all his neighbours together is still smaller.

To be wise is to be eternally curious.

My description of wisdom has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is to do with being wise in one's own virtue, nothing more. My description of being has nothing to do with benevolence and righteousness, it is that one should be led by one's innate nature, nothing more.

We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise: for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them: but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know?

It is better to be wise, and not to seem so, than to seem wise, and not be so; yet men, for the most part, desire the contrary.

It’s time to stop being vague. If you wish to be an extraordinary person, if you wish to be wise, then you should explicitly identify the kind of person you aspire to become.

Even a god finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time. -Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur

License they mean when they cry Liberty; For who loves that, must first be wise and good.

We live in an age that reads too much to be wise, and that thinks too much to be beautiful.

Plays round the head, but comes not to the heart. One self-approving hour whole years outweighs Of stupid starers and of loud huzzas; And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels Than Cæsar with a senate at his heels. In parts superior what advantage lies? Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? 'T is but to know how little can be known; To see all others' faults, and feel our own.

It's always better to be wise than to be smart.

Those who gave thee a body, furnished it with weakness; but He who gave thee Soul, armed thee with resolution. Employ it, and thou art wise; be wise and thou art happy.

Since you have to do the things you have to do, be wise enough to do some of the things you want to do.

She was not too young to be wise, but she was too young to know that wisdom shouldn't be spoken aloud when you are happy.

Quit smoking, and observe posted speed limits. This will improve your odds of getting old enough to be wise.

Let fools the studious despise,_x000D_ _x000D_ There's nothing lost by being wise.

In our friendships we have to be wise that we choose godly people to be our friends. Somebody might say, well does that mean that you should never have a lost person as your friend? No, I wouldn't say that. But you can't have the same intimacy with a lost person that you can with a godly person in whom the Holy Spirit is living.