Quotes on Wisdom

Here is the prime condition of success: Concentrate your energy, thought and capital exclusively upon the business in which you are engaged. Having begun on one line, resolve to fight it out on that line, to lead in it, adopt every improvement, have the best machinery, and know the most about it.

As we learn to have compassion for ourselves, the circle of compassion for others - what and whom we can work with, and how - becomes wider.

I really feel that some people neglect and overlook compassion because they associate it with religion. Of course, everyone is free to choose whether they pay religion any regard, but to neglect compassion is a mistake because it is the source of our own well-being.

The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence.

There is about wisdom a nobility and magnificence in the fact that she doesn't just fall to a person's lot, that each man owes her to his own efforts, that one doesn't go to anyone other than oneself to find her.

Little by little, wean yourself. This is the gist of what I have to say. From an embryo whose nourishment comes in the blood, move to an infant drinking milk, to a child on solid food, to a searcher after wisdom, to a hunter of invisible game.

The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near.

We lie loudest when we lie to ourselves.

And I honor the man who is willing to sink half his present repute for the freedom to think, and, when he has thought, be his cause strong or weak, Will risk t' other half for the freedom to speak.

The people must fight for their laws as for their walls.

Wealth and rank are what men desire, but unless they be obtained in the right way they may not be possessed. Poverty and obscurity are what men detest; but unless prosperity be brought about in the right way, they are not to be abandoned.

Try to remain truthful. The power of truth never declines. Force and violence may be effective in the short term, but in the long run it's truth that prevails.

Rightly defined philosophy is simply the love of wisdom.

The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.

Know what you know and know that you don't know what you don't know — that is the characteristic of one who knows.

There is no one who can give you wiser advice than you can give yourself: you will never make a slip, if you listen to your own heart.

The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct.

Never give up on yourself. Then you will never give up on others.

Those who are held Wise among men and who search the reasons of things, are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves.

We pay a high price for intelligence. Wisdom hurts.

Spirituality for me is recognizing that I am connected to the energy of all creation, that I am a part of it and it is always a part of me.