Wise quotes
5.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"Speak not at all, in any wise, till you have somewhat to speak; care not for the reward of your speaking, but simply and with undivided mind for the truth of your speaking."
"Life does not require us to be consistent, cruel, patient, helpful, angry, rational, thoughtless, loving, rash, open-minded, neurotic, careful, rigid, tolerant, wasteful, rich, downtrodden, gentle, sick, considerate, funny, stupid, healthy, greedy, beautiful, lazy, responsive, foolish, sharing, pressured, intimate, hedonistic, industrious, manipulative, insightful, capricious, wise, selfish, kind or sacrificed. Life does, however, require us to live with the consequences of our choices."
"Just because the tide is out, doesn't mean there is less water in the ocean."
"He who is not sage and wise, humane and just, cannot use secret agent.s. And he who is not delicate and subtle cannot get the truth out of them."
"Seek not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity."
"I believe in the fundamental truth of all great religions of the world."
"The wise speak only of what they know"
"Let the wise one control his thoughts, for they are difficult to perceive, often elusive, and they rush about frantically: a mind well controlled achieves peace and happiness."
"A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise - that is what one really calls a fool."
"A wise ruler should rely on what is under his own control, not on what is under the control of others."
"Some princes, so as to hold securely the state, have disarmed their subjects, others have kept their subject towns distracted by factions...Our forefathers, and those who were reckoned wise, were accustomed to say that it was necessary to hold Pistoia [an Italian city] by factions and Pisa by fortress, and with this idea they fostered quarrels in some of their tributary towns so as to keep possession of them the more easily."
"To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution."
"No man can be wise on an empty stomach."
"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual."
"A wise man cares not for what he cannot have."
"Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks."
"I saw in 'the wandering Jew' the personification of the Jewish people, exiled in the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, they are once again extremely rich, owing to their unfailing rude greediness and their indefatigable activity. With their hard-heartedness that they extend toward people of other faiths and races they are at the point of making themselves kings of the world. This people can thank its obstinacy that France will be Judized within fifty years. Already some wise Jews prophesy this frankly."
"Simplify, simplify, simplify."
"Every past is worth condemning."
"We think we don't deserve love, we think if we let it in we'll become too soft. But a wise man named Levine said it right. He said." Love is the only rational act."
