Quotes on Wise

Although I'm only fourteen, I know quite well what I want, I know who is right and who is wrong. I have my opinions, my own ideas and principles, and although it may sound pretty mad from an adolescent, I feel more of a person than a child, I feel quite indepedent of anyone.

A wise reader reads the book of genius not with his heart, not so much with his brain, but with his spine. It is there that occurs the telltale tingle.

There is no one thoroughly despicable. We cannot descend much lower than an idiot; and an idiot has some advantages over a wise man.

To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men that is genius.

A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.

The truth is rarely pure and never simple.

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

Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

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

The wise man regulates his conduct by the theories both of religion and science. But he regards these theories not as statements of ultimate fact but as art-forms.

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

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

It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.

The one knowing what is profitable, and not the man knowing many things, is wise.

The latter part of a wise person's life is occupied with curing the follies, prejudices and false opinions they contracted earlier.

A wise man should have money in his head, but not in his heart.

Among mortals second thoughts are wisest.

The good and the wise lead quiet lives.