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Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice.
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
AESCHYLUS, Prometheus Bound
The kind of man who always thinks that he is right, that his opinions, his pronouncements, are the final word, when once exposed shows nothing there. But a wise man has much to learn without a loss of dignity.
Second thoughts are ever wiser.
Full wise is he that can himself know.
GEOFFREY CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales
Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
HERMANN HESSE, Siddhartha
Wisdom and folly are equal before the face of Infinity, for Infinity knows them not.
LEONID ANDREYEV, "Lazarus"
There's little comfort in the wise.
RUPERT BROOKE, Tiare Tahiti
- Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
- Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
Never, no, never did Nature say one thing and Wisdom say another.
EDMUND BURKE, Letters on a Regicide Peace
It is because the old have forgotten life that they preach wisdom.
PHILIP MOELLER, Helena's Husband
Wisdom consists in being able to distinguish among dangers and make a choice of the least harmful.
NICCOLO MACHIAVELLI, The Prince
Of all the forms of wisdom, hindsight is by general consent the least merciful, the most unforgiving.
JOHN FLETCHER, intro, Jean-Claude Favez's Holocaust
What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU, Emile
A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence.
DAVID HUME, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding
In youth men are apt to write more wisely than they really know or feel; and the remainder of life may be not idly spent in realizing and convincing themselves of the wisdom which they uttered long ago.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, preface, The Snow-Image
A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.
WILLIAM BLAKE, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Wisdom comes only through suffering.
- The first and wisest of them all professed
- To know this only, that he nothing knew.
JOHN MILTON, Paradise Regained
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