Wisdom Quotes

500+ Sourced quotes

Alexandre Dumas

Bertolt Brecht

Bob Marley

Charles Dickens

Bertrand Russell

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Don't gain the world and lose your soul
Wisdom is better than silver and gold.

Men, be kind to your fellow-men; this is your first duty, kind to every age and station, kind to all that is not foreign to humanity. What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West. Some courage and some wisdom, blended in measure. If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world. But sad or merry, I must leave it now. Farewell!

J. R. R. Tolkien

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

Of the French Revolution

Charles Dickens

Until the day when God shall deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is summed up in these two words: wait and hope.

Alexandre Dumas

Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.

Wisdom too often never comes, and so one ought not to reject it merely because it comes late.

Felix Frankfurter

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song? Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price of all the man hath, his house, his wife, his children.

Many sophisticated, intelligent people lack wisdom and common sense.

You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.

Harry Dean Stanton

I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship.

Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God.

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know. Success makes a fool of you, but failure can come only from great effort. One who doesn't try cannot fail and become wise.

William Saroyan

And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.

The all-seeing eye of God beheld our deplorable state; infinite pity touched the heart of the Father of mercies; and infinite wisdom laid the plan of our recovery.

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

Anne Bradstreet

Most things break, including hearts. The lessons of a life amount not to wisdom but to scar tissue and callus.

Wallace Stegner

And I pray thee, loving Jesus, that as Thou hast graciously given me to drink in with delight the words of Thy knowledge, so Thou wouldst mercifully grant me to attain one day to Thee, the fountain of all wisdom and to appear forever before Thy face.

He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom.

Counsel woven into the fabric of real life is wisdom.

Walter Benjamin

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure weapon against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is wisdom. The surest path to wisdom is a liberal education.

Alfred Whitney Griswold

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Books are not seldom talismans and spells.

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.