Wise quotes
5.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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"It is a great pleasure to transport one's-self into the spirit of the times; to see how a wise man has thought before us, and to what a glorious height we have at last carried it."
"It is a maxim of wise government to treat people not as they should be but as they actually are."
"My wife, my Mary, goes to her sleep the way you would close the door of a closet. So many times I have watched her with envy. Her lovely body squirms a moment as though she fitted herself into a cocoon. She sighs once and at the end of it her eyes close and her lips, untroubled, fall into that wise and remote smile of the Ancient Greek gods. She smiles all night in her sleep, her breath purrs in her throat, not a snore, a kitten's purr... She loves to sleep and sleep welcomes her."
"Wise to resolve, and patient to perform."
"It is not strength, but art, obtains the prize, And to be swift is less than to be wise."
"It is a wise child that knows his own father. [Lat., Nondum enim quisquam suum parentem ipse cognosvit.]"
"There is no gown or garment that worse becomes a woman than when she will be wise."
"Time itself is an individual gift. It is wise to cherish it carefully and give it away generously."
"I'm considered wise, and sometimes I see myself as knowing. Most of the time, I see myself as wanting to know. And I see myself as a very interested person. I've never been bored in my life."
"Though we may be learned by another's knowledge, we can never be wise but by our own experience."
"Wise people are foolish if they cannot adapt to foolish people."
"Perfect reason flees all extremity, and leads one to be wise with sobriety."
"We ought always to conform to the manners of the greater number, and so behave as not to draw attention to ourselves. Excess either way shocks, and every man truly wise ought to attend to this in his dress as well as language, never to be affected in anything and follow without being in too great haste the changes of fashion."
"Your thief looks Exactly like the rest, or rather better; 'Tis only at the bar, and in the dungeon, That wise men know your felon by his features."
"Think of what a paradise this world would be if men were kind and wise."
"You have grown abominably lazy, and you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones."
"A spoon cannot taste of the food it carries. Likewise, a foolish man cannot understand the wise man´s wisdom even if he associates with a sage."
"..(T)here are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows."
"The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story…by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it."
"Luck can be assisted. It is not all chance with the wise."
