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Wisdom

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“Wisdom doesn't affect corrupt hearts.”
Ali al-Hadi (829–868) said by 868 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Human beings have not been given anything higher than wisdom and intellect.”
Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) said by 799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Silence is a great wisdom.”
Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) said by 799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Silence is among the doors to wisdom; it brings about love and is a proof of all good things.":151”
Musa al-Kadhim (745–799) said by 799 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Japanese boys’ unconscious wisdom is: their dad as winner is really their dad as loser.”
Warren Farrell (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Geology has shared the fate of other infant sciences, in being for a while considered hostile to revealed religion; so like them, when fully understood, it will be found a potent and consistent auxiliary to it, exalting our conviction of the Power, and Wisdom, and Goodness of the Creator.”
William Buckland (1784–1856) said by 1856 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in The Age of the World : Moses to Darwin (1959) by Francis C. Haber, p. 221
“When God first created man, He endowed him with the spirit of goodness. As a result, men were born with wisdom …. they took the Name of God and …. were liberated from the bonds of life. God thought, 'This will not do….In the end…..He mingled in profuse quantities of the spirit of materialism and that of vanity. Now the game of life went on with a swing!”
Sarada Devi (1853–1920) said by 1920 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And even the Angels could not tell what was that voice so strange, Whose secret seemed to lie beyond Celestial wisdom’s range.”
Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938) said by 1938 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I sit beside my lonely fire And pray for wisdom yet: For calmness to remember Or courage to forget.”
Charles Hamilton Aide (1826–1906) said by 1906 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Remember or Forget, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“It is easy to judge evil unmixed,” replied Gwydion. “But, alas, in most of us good and bad are closely woven as the threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.”
Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Take this as a gift from a crone to a maiden, and know there is not so much difference between the two. For even a tottering granddam keeps a portion of girlish heart, and the youngest maiden a thread of old woman’s wisdom.”
Lloyd Alexander (1924–2007) said by 2007 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And parents, some old fashioned kitchen wisdom for dealing with those lice: take your child and cover his hair with mayonnaise and shove him outside because he disgraced your house by bringing lice into it.”
John Hodgman (born 1971) first seen 2006 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: September 13, 2006
“… if you look around the Christian faith, you won't find many of those proud people who are puffed up in their own 'fleshly' wisdom.”
Ray Comfort (born 1949) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“We are told by the Grecian writers, that the Indians were the wisest of nations; and in moral wisdom, they were certainly eminent.”
William Jones (philologist) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Of these no more. From Orders, Slaves and Kings, To thee, O Man, my heart rebounding springs. Behold th' ascending bliss that waits your call, Heav'n's own bequest, the heritage of all. Awake to wisdom, seize the proffer'd prize; From shade to light, from grief to glory rise. Freedom at last, with Reason in her train, Extends o'er earth her everlasting reign…”
Joel Barlow (1754–1812) said by 1812 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The highest wisdom incarnated in the poorest body. And even in straw mixed with manure: the final substances in which, by a rare miracle, the origin and strength of life emerge anew. The circle closes.”
Antoni Tàpies (1923–2012) first seen 1970 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In: 'Res no és mesquí', La pràctica de l'art, Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona: Ariel, 1970; as quoted in: 'Tàpies: From Within', June ─ November, 2013 - Presse Release, Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya (MNAC ), p. 13, note 14
“This Bible, then, has a mission, grander than any mere creation of God; for in this volume are infinite wisdom, and infinite love. Between its covers are the mind and heart of God; and they are for man's good, for his salvation, his guidance, his spiritual nourishment. If now I neglect my Bible, I do my soul a wrong; for the fact of this Divine message is evidence that I need it.”
Abbott Eliot Kittredge (1834–1912) said by 1912 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But this same process of the old teaching the young can also cause errors and false conclusions to accumulate with the passage of time. One should therefore study ancient writings, not so much in the hope of finding lost wisdom as in the hope of locating the origin of errors that have been, and still are, accepted truths.”
Carl Eckart (1902–1973) said by 1973 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Aphorisms respect the wisdom of silence by disturbing it, but briefly.”
Yahia Lababidi (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God grant that as our horizon of duty is widened, our minds may widen with it; that as our burden is increased, our shoulders may be strengthened to bear it. God grant to us that spirit of wisdom and understanding, uprightness, and godly fear, without which, even in greatest things there is nothing; with which, even in the smallest things there is every thing.”
Arthur Penrhyn Stanley (1815–1881) said by 1881 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I thought I knew where I was going, until I heard your laughter flowingAnd came upon the wisdom in your eyes”
Jackson Browne (born 1948) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“There are two ways of confronting the country's problems. One is through a management style based on adventurism, instability, play-acting, exaggerations, wrongdoing, being secretive, self-importance, superficiality and ignoring the law. The second way is based on realism, respect, openness, collective wisdom and avoiding extremism.”
Mir-Hossein Mousavi (born 1941) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in "Ahmadinejad lashes out at Iran's ex-presidents", CNN (4 June 2009)
“He who honours the Son, who is the Word and Reason, acts in nowise contrary to reason, and gains for himself great good; he who honours Him, who is the Truth, becomes better by honouring truth: and this we may say of honouring wisdom, righteousness, and all the other names by which the sacred Scriptures are wont to designate the Son of God.”
Origen (184–254) said by 254 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“You are all Prime Minister candidates, Ministers, Vice Ministers, but you are all now listening to me. Not because I am physically stronger, but because I have proven my wisdom throughout the years.”
Boyko Borissov (born 1959) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Addressing members of his proposed cabinet following the 2021 parliamentary elections, 20 April 2021
“We cannot doubt that all things are regulated by a supreme Being, who, while he has imprinted on matter forces which show his power, has destined it to execute effects which mark his wisdom... Let us calculate the motion of bodies, but let us also consult the designs of the Intelligence which makes them move.”
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) first seen 1752 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Les Oeuvres De Mr. De Maupertuis (1752) vol. iv p. 22; as quoted by Philip Edward Bertrand Jourdain, The Principle of Least Action (1913) p. 6.
“Despite the disorder observed in Nature, one finds enough traces of the wisdom and power of its Author that one cannot fail to recognize Him.”
Pierre Louis Maupertuis (1698–1759) said by 1759 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The road to wisdom? — Well, it's plain and simple to express: Err and err and err again but less and less and less.”
Piet Hein (1905–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom is the booby prize given when you've been unwise.”
Piet Hein (1905–1996) said by 1996 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Erudition without pedantry is as a rare as wisdom itself.”
George Sarton (1884–1956) said by 1956 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Conventional wisdom, fooled by our misleading "physical intuition", is that the real world is continuous, and that discrete models are necessary evils for approximating the "real" world, due to the innate discreteness of the digital computer.”
Doron Zeilberger (born 1950) first seen 2001 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Real" Analysis is a Degenerate Case of Discrete Analysis. Appeared in the book "New Progress in Difference Equations"(Proc. ICDEA 2001), edited by Bernd Aulbach, Saber Elaydi, and Gerry Ladas, and publisher by Taylor & …
“That is forgotten, their wars and their deeds and their very speech. Wisdom lasts. It is what I have sought across the world.”
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) said by 2001 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“He is wisdom for your ignorance, strength for your weakness, righteousness for your guilt, sanctification for your corruption, redemption from all the thralldom of your apostasy.”
Richard Fuller (minister) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“No one, however smart, however well educated, however experienced, is the suppository of all wisdom.”
Tony Abbott (born 1957) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Liberal Party Campaign launch, 12/08/2013 ("Tony Abbott declares 'no one can be a suppository of all wisdom'").
“There's been a revolution in the fields of anthropology and archaeology over the past thirty years, and increasingly people are coming to understand that life before agriculture and domestication — of animals and ourselves — was in fact largely one of leisure, intimacy with nature, sensual wisdom, gender equality, and health.”
John Zerzan (born 1943) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To the American media, mining Mandela's legacy has meant repeating the man's fortune-cookie profundities and warmed-over wisdom.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mandela mum about systematic murder of whites", Praag.org, December 13, 2013.
“Jews like presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders have forgotten that riches are a reward for work well done. In the Jewish faith's infinite wisdom, wealth justly acquired is a sign of God's blessing.”
Ilana Mercer first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Burn-the-Wealth Bernie & His Partial Enslavement System,"The Quarterly Review, October 16, 2015
“I see a sequence of seven main phases: creation,revolution or exodus (Israel in Egypt), law, wisdom, prophecy, gospel, and apocalypse.”
Northrop Frye (1912–1991) said by 1991 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“For knowledge to become wisdom, and for the soul to grow, the soul must be rooted in God: and it is through prayer that there comes to us that which is the strength of our strength, and the virtue of our virtue, the Holy Spirit.”
William Mountford (1816–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The beginning of wisdom is to admit to being inept. We’re all a bit slow. We have our moments, but in the end, we have to resort to bumbling through. It is what makes conviction so egregious.”
Jack McDevitt (born 1935) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Knowledge is a process of piling up facts; wisdom lies in their simplification.”
Martin H. Fischer (1879–1962) first seen 1945 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As quoted in ‪Encore : A Continuing Anthology‬ (March 1945) edited by Smith Dent, "Fischerisms" p. 309
“Job learned the wisdom of silence before God, but it appears many Christians have abandoned this value in our wordy world.”
Skye Jethani (born 1976) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Man's knowledge, save before his fellow man, Is ignorance—his widest wisdom folly.”
Theodore Watts-Dunton (1832–1914) first seen 1867 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prophetic Pictures at Venice VII: New Year's Morning, 1867", p. 207.
“Contrary to conventional wisdom, class conflict in feudal times was not a rarity but a constant. Even in the early Middle Ages, various kinds of peasant resistance probably occurred more frequently than we realize: sabotage, fleeing the manor, violating prohibitions, and refusing to pay dues or perform certain services or abide by particular regulations.”
Michael Parenti (1933–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Wisdom precludes boldness.”
Patrick Rothfuss (born 1973) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Pham was overwhelmed by the other things that Gunnar Larson had to say, the advice that might be worthless but that had the stench of wisdom.”
Vernor Vinge (1944–2024) said by 2024 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Guided by His wisdom, strong in His strength, there maybe for you struggle and suffering, the darkness and the storm. "The disciple is not above His Master." There may be weeping that shall endure for a night, but joy shall come in the morning. If the night cometh, so also the morning, "a morning without clouds," the morning of an eternal day.”
Mark Hopkins (educator) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Religion has never, in any period, sustained itself except by the instrumentality of the tongue of fire. Only where some men, more or less imbued with this primitive power, have spoken the words of the Lord, not with " the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth," have sinners been converted, and saints prompted to a saintlier life.”
William Arthur (minister) wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit; wisdom is knowing not to use it in a fruit salad.”
Brian O'Driscoll (born 1979) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: O'Driscoll's widely quoted musing when asked to give his view on former Lions team mate and current England manager, Martin Johnson ahead of Ireland's Six Nations Championship match against England on 28 February 2009. …
“It is from the scope and wisdom of the economists of the past that we must reap the knowledge with which to face the future.”
Robert Heilbroner (1919–2005) said by 2005 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Cherish wisdom as a means of travelling from youth to old age, for it is more lasting than any other possession.”
Bias of Priene (600–530 BC) said by 530 BC at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source