Quotes on Wisdom

The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all.

I do not agree with what you have to say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week sometimes to make it up.

Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.

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

The health of a democratic society may be measured by the quality of functions performed by private citizens.

The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.

A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone.

What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise.

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

Nothing is so hard for those who abound in riches as to conceive how others can be in want.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

It has always seemed strange to me... the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.

Rich people without wisdom and learning are but sheep with golden fleeces.

The experience gathered from books, though often valuable, is but the nature of learning; whereas the experience gained from actual life is one of the nature of wisdom.