When you want wisdom and insight as badly as you want to breathe, it is then you shall have it.
The beginning of wisdom is a definition of terms.
Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go.
Sciences may be learned by rote, but wisdom not.
Lessons of wisdom have the most power over us when they capture the heart through the groundwork of a story, which engages the passions.
The wise man does at once what the fool does finally.
The first method for estimating the intelligence of a ruler is to look at the men he has around him.
Happy the country that lives on nothing but its wits; cursed be the one that thinks it can get rich by planting or digging or drilling for wealth.
Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.
Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.
A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.
I observe and remain silent.
The mob rushes in where individuals fear to tread.
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
The most necessary learning is that which unlearns evil.
All evil comes from the old. They grow fat on ideas and young men die of them.
Seward would inspire a cow with statesmanship if she understood our language.
Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom.
“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.
“but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?”
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.