Wisdom Quotes

Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds' wings.

I envy you going to Oxford: it is the most flower-like time of one's life. One sees the shadow of things in silver mirrors. Later on, one sees the Gorgon's head, and one suffers, because it does not turn one to stone.

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. People know themselves much better than you do. That's why it's important to stop expecting them to be something other than who they are

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot, with your best deliberation and heed, come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you.

Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.

Fear has its use, but cowardice has none. I may not put my finger into the jaws of a snake, but the very sight of the snake need not strike terror into me.

Since you are not a prophet, follow the way taught by prophets.Since you are not a king, be a loyal subject to The King.Since you are not a captain, do not take the helm of the ship.Since you do not possess every skill, have partners in your business.Be as pliant as dough in the hands of others, that you may rise well.

Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.

Swallowing angry words before you say them is better than having to eat them afterwards.

How little do the wisest among us know of that which is so important to us all.

The best things are placed between extremes.

Beware Of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Bear't that the opposed may beware of thee. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice; Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment. Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

Today I am altogether without ambition. Where did I get such wisdom?

Go wisely and slowly. Those who rush stumble and fall.

There's a time for daring and there's a time for caution, and a wise man understands which is called for.

Therefore the Sage, wishing to be above the people, must by his words put himself below them; wishing to be before the people, he must put himself behind them. In this way, though he has his place above them, the people do not feel his weight; though he has his place before them, they do not feel it as an injury. Therefore all mankind delight to exalt him, and weary of him not.

it is harder to be philosophical when you are young.

To rule by knowledge ravages the country.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.

Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

The shallow, as intimated, consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

How earthy old people become --moldy as the grave! Their wisdom smacks of the earth. There is no foretaste of immortality in it. They remind me of earthworms and mole crickets.

It is wisdom to take occasional furlough. In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less. On, on, on for ever, without recreation may suit spirits emancipated from this 'heavy clay', but while we are in this tabernacle, we must every now and then cry halt, and serve the Lord by holy inaction and consecrated leisure. Let no tender conscience doubt the lawfulness of going out of harness for a while

We have heard of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It is said that knowledge is power, and the like. Methinks there is equal need of a Society for the Diffusion of Useful Ignorance, what we will call Beautiful Knowledge, a knowledge useful in a higher sense: for what is most of our boasted so-called knowledge but a conceit that we know something, which robs us of the advantage of our actual ignorance? What we call knowledge is often our positive ignorance; ignorance our negative knowledge.

The superior man does what is proper to the station in which he is; he does not desire to go beyond this.

It gave me a strange feeling, and the rest of that night I didn’t say much, but merely sat there and drank, trying to decide if I was getting older and wiser, or just plain old.

Do not try to live forever. You will not succeed.

...We're allotted a little space on earth and that we survive in that wilderness that can take back what it has given, as easily as blowing its breath on us or sending the sea to tell us we are not so big. When we forget how close the wilderness is in the night, my grandpa said, someday it will come in and get us, for we will have forgotten how terrible and real it can be.

The golden rule is that there are no golden rules.

Thinking should become your capital asset, no matter whatever ups and downs you come across in your life.

Love seems the swiftest, but it is the slowest of all growths. No man or woman really knows what perfect love is until they have been married a quarter of a century.

One must have deeper motives and judge everything accordingly, but go on talking like an ordinary person.

For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.

There is a very fine line between loving life and being greedy for it.

Your best teacher is your last mistake.

It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.

If I have even just a little sense, I will walk on the main road and my only fear will be of straying from it. Keeping to the main road is easy, But people love to be sidetracked.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief.

Life is a festival only to the wise.

I’ve been things and I've seen places.

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought - asleep. When we are weary of the living, we may repair to the dead, who have nothing of peevishness, pride, or design in their conversation.

I prefer silent prudence to loquacious folly.

When a new idea comes our way, we must put it on our mental scales and weigh it carefully before deciding its value.

The cunning man steals a horse, the wise man lets him alone.

Wisdom tells us we are not worthy;Love tells us we are.My life flows between the two.

Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed. What really teaches a man is not experience, but observation.

Your dog is your only philosopher.

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.

Even four harnessed horses cannot bring imprudent words back into the mouth.

Through neglect, ignorance, or inability, the new intellectual Borgias cram hairballs down our throats and refuse us the convulsion that could make us well. They have forgotten, if they ever knew, the ancient knowledge that only by being truly sick can one regain health. Even beasts know when it is good and proper to throw up. Teach me how to be sick then, in the right time and place, so that I may again walk in the fields and with the wise and smiling dogs know enough to chew sweet grass.

An unlearned carpenter of my acquaintance once said in my hearing: "There is very little difference between one man and another; but what little there is, is very important." This distinction seems to me to go to the root of the matter.

There's three things in this world that you need: Respect for all kinds of life, a nice bowel movement on a regular basis, and a navy blazer.

Listen to many, speak to a few.

Success = 1 part work plus 1 part play plus 1 part keep your mouth shut

Sacred cows make the best hamburger.

Once upon a time a man whose ax was missing suspected his neighbor's son. The boy walked like a thief, looked like a thief and spoke like a thief. But the man found his ax while digging in the valley, and the next time he saw his neighbor's son, the boy walked, looked and spoke like any other child.

Reading without thinking will confuse you.Thinking without reading will place you in danger.

Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.

I say there is no darkness but ignorance.