Quotes on Wisdom

To see what is right and not to do it is want of courage, or of principle.

The hour of departure has arrived and we go our ways; I to die, and you to live. Which is better? Only God knows.

We read to find out what the world is like, to experience lots of lives, not just the one we live. If it is true that our lives are chaotic and we crave a shape, stories are the shapes that we put on experience, containing all the wisdom in the world. We can even choose what kind of wisdom suits us.

The inscrutable wisdom through which we exist is not less worthy of veneration in respect to what it denies us than in respect to what it has granted.

You don't need organized religion to connect with the universe. Often a church is the only place you can go to find peace and quiet... But it shouldn't be confused with connecting with one's spirit.

The enemy is anybody who's going to get you killed, no matter which side he's on.

To completely trust in Allah is to be like a child who knows deeply that even if he does not call for the mother, the mother is totally aware of his condition and is looking after him.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom - and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech.

Do not fix hopes on your health, and do not laugh away life. Remember how they walked and now all their joints lie separately, and the tongue with which they talked lightly is eaten away by the worms

The strongest symptom of wisdom in man is his being sensible of his own follies.

Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

In a country where the sole employer is the State, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat.

It is impossible that happiness, and yearning for what is not present, should ever be united.

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Although we are all the same in not wanting problems and wanting a peaceful life, we tend to create a lot of problems for ourselves. Encountering those problems, anger develops and overwhelms our mind, which leads to violence. A good way to counter this and to work for a more peaceful world is to develop concern for others. Then our anger, jealousy and other destructive emotions will naturally weaken and diminish.

The profound thinker always suspects that he is superficial.

We cannot judge fully of men's works by what we see, or what is said and thought of them; for man is prone to depreciate that which is really important, and to exact and extol what is trivial and of little worth. Many things which are hidden and unrecognized of human wisdom are nevertheless valuable and vitally important.

Humility is the foundation of all the other virtues hence, in the soul in which this virtue does not exist there cannot be any other virtue except in mere appearance.

Peace cannot be built on exclusivism, absolutism, and intolerance. But neither can it be built on vague liberal slogans and pious programs gestated in the smoke of confabulation. There can be no peace on earth without the kind of inner change that brings man back to his "right mind." p. 31

Humanity's legacy of stories and storytelling is the most precious we have. All wisdom is in our stories and songs. A story is how we construct our experiences. At the very simplest, it can be: 'He/she was born, lived, died.' Probably that is the template of our stories - a beginning, middle, and end. This structure is in our minds.

We have the choice of two identities: the external mask which seems to be real...and the hidden, inner person who seems to us to be nothing, but who can give himself eternally to the truth in whom he subsists. (295)