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Wisdom

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“This too I know—and wise it were If each could know the same— That every prison that men build Is built with bricks of shame, And bound with bars lest Christ should see How men their brothers maim.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) said by 1900 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cabbage, n. A familiar kitchen-garden vegetable about as large and wise as a man's head.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Education, n. That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.”
Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914) said by 1914 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of course, when you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.”
Winston Churchill (1874–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In The Second World War, Volume V : Closing the Ring (1952) Chapter 12 (Island Prizes Lost).
“I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.”
Napoleon (1769–1821) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Sheikh El-Messiri (28 August 1798); published in Correspondance Napoleon edited by Henri Plon (1861), Vol.4, No. 3148, p. 420
“I may have had many projects, but I never was free to carry out any of them. It did me little good to be holding the helm; no matter how strong my hands, the sudden and numerous waves were stronger still, and I was wise enough to yield to them rather than resist them obstinately and make the ship founder. Thus I never was truly my own master but was always ruled by circumstances.”
Napoleon (1769–1821) first seen 1816 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Conversation with Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases (11 November 1816), Mémorial de Sainte Hélène, v. 4, p. 133.
“Money is only a tool in business. It is just a part of the machinery. You might as well borrow 100,000 lathes as $100,000 if the trouble is inside your business. More lathes will not cure it; neither will more money. Only heavier doses of brains and thought and wise courage can cure. A business that misuses what it has will continue to misuse what it can get.”
Henry Ford (1863–1947) said by 1947 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Men are wise in proportion, not to their experience, but to their capacity for experience. If we could learn from mere experience, the stones of London would be wiser than its wisest men.”
George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) said by 1950 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.”
Aesop (620–564 BC) said by 564 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The truly good and wise man will bear all kinds of fortune in a seemly way, and will always act in the noblest manner that the circumstances allow.”
Aristotle (384–322 BC) said by 322 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Virtuous, worthy, wise and capable people are chosen as leaders.”
Confucius (551–479 BC) said by 479 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He who is in love is wise and is becoming wiser, sees newly every time he looks at the object beloved, drawing from it with his eyes and his mind those virtues which it possesses.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Method of Nature (1841), p. 25
“Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, his hall the azure dome.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It costs a beautiful person no exertion to paint her image on our eyes; yet how splendid is that benefit! It costs no more for a wise soul to convey his quality to other men.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) said by 1882 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Neither a wise man or a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in Time magazine (6 October 1952)
“As I slowly grow wise I briskly grow cautious.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) first seen 1901 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: English as She Is Taught", The Century, Vol. 33, No. 6, April 1887A slightly abridged version was reprinted as [http://books.google.com/books?id=CxIuAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR11 Introduction to Caroline B. Le Row, English as She Is…
“Who looks in the sun will see no light else; but also he will see no shadow. Our life revolves unceasingly, but the centre is ever the same, and the wise will regard only the seasons of the soul.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) first seen 1841 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: March 10, 1841
“None can be an impartial or wise observer of human life but from the vantage ground of what we should call voluntary poverty.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) said by 1862 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A wise man does not try to hurry history. Many wars have been avoided by patience and many have been precipitated by reckless haste.”
Adlai Stevenson II (1900–1965) first seen 1952 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Speeches of Adlai Stevenson (1952), p. 39
“People who are wise, good, smart, skillful, or hardworking don't need politics, they have jobs.”
P. J. O'Rourke (1947–2022) said by 2022 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Think before you speak. Read before you think. This will give you something to think about that you didn't make up yourself - a wise move at any age, but most especially at seventeen, when you are in the greatest danger of coming to annoying conclusions.”
Fran Lebowitz (born 1950) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete, Wise, personable, ravishing, and sweet, Come joys enjoy. The Lord celestial Hath given enough wherewith to please us all.”
François Rabelais (1494–1553) said by 1553 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is impossible to imagine the universe run by a wise, just and omnipotent God, but it is quite easy to imagine it run by a board of gods. If such a board actually exists it operates precisely like the board of a corporation that is losing money.”
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The highfalutin aims of democracy, whether real or imaginary, are always assumed to be identical with its achievements. This, of course, is sheer hallucination. Not one of those aims, not even the aim of giving every adult a vote, has been realized. It has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.”
H. L. Mencken (1880–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail — Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlb'rough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1759 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 57 (19 May 1759)
“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1780 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Oliver Goldsmith (1780)
“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: March 20, 1782
“Among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it — the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.”
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) said by 1919 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I don't see anything wrong with being alone, it feels great to me. People make a big thing about personal love. It doesn't have to be such a big thing. The same for living - people make a big thing about that too. But personal living and personal loving are the two things the Eastern-type wise men don't think about.”
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) said by 1987 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.”
Henry Miller (1891–1980) said by 1980 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The most hopelessly stupid man is he who is not aware that he is wise.”
Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) said by 1992 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Alas! Your dear friend and servant Galileo has been for the last month hopelessly blind; so that this heaven, this earth, this universe, which I by my marvelous discoveries and clear demonstrations had enlarged a hundred thousand times beyond the belief of the wise men of bygone ages, henceforward for me is shrunk into such a small space as is filled by my own bodily sensations.”
Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) first seen 1638 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Élie Diodati (2 January 1638), as translated in The Private Life of Galileo: Compiled primarily from his correspondence and that of his eldest daughter, Sister Maria Celeste (1870) by Mary Allan-Olney, p. 279
“The Theophilanthropists do not call themselves the disciples of such or such a man. They avail themselves of the wise precepts that have been transmitted by writers of all countries and in all ages.”
Thomas Paine (1737–1809) said by 1809 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We love not this French God, the child of hell, Wild War, who breaks the converse of the wise; But though we love kind Peace so well, We dare not even by silence sanction lies. It might be safe our censures to withdraw, And yet, my Lords, not well; there is a higher law.”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1852 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Third of February, 1852", st. 2 (1852)
“For nothing worthy proving can be proven, Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt, And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith!”
Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892) first seen 1885 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: From The Ancient Sage (1885), lines 66-69
“I love tranquil solitude, And such society As is quiet, wise, and good; Between thee and me What difference? but thou dost possess The things I seek, not love them less.”
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) said by 1822 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Those wise men knew God to be in things, and Divinity to be latent in Nature, working and glowing differently in different subjects and succeeding through diverse physical forms, in certain arrangements, in making them participants in her, I say, in her being, in her life and intellect.”
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) said by 1600 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As translated by Arthur Imerti (1964)
“The wise soul feareth not death; rather she sometimes striveth for death, she goeth beyond to meet her. Yet eternity maintaineth her substance throughout time, immensity throughout space, universal form throughout motion.”
Giordano Bruno (1548–1600) said by 1600 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The wise will determine from the gravity of the case; the irritable from sensibility to oppression; the high-minded from disdain and indignation at abusive power in unworthy hands.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) said by 1797 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We still have that in America. As Americans, let us all rededicate ourselves to the ideals that George Washington set. Let us give of ourselves so that when our time is through, history may say of us what Thomas Jefferson said of him: Their integrity was the most pure and their justice the most inflexible we have ever known. They were in every sense of the word a wise and a great people.”
Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) said by 2004 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Defer not till tomorrow to be wise, Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise.”
William Congreve (1670–1729) said by 1729 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Our greatest stupidities may be very wise.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) said by 1951 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) said by 1968 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Chance seldom interferes with the wise man; his greatest and highest interests have been, are, and will be, directed by reason throughout his whole life. (16).”
Epicurus (342–270 BC) said by 270 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A wise man, who puts himself under the government of reason, will be able to receive an injury with calmness, and to treat the person who committed it with lenity; for he will rank injuries among the casual events of life, and will prudently reflect that he can no more stop the natural current of human passions, than he can curb the stormy winds.”
Epicurus (342–270 BC) said by 270 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source