Wisdom Quotes
The best wisdom quotes and sayings have the power to give a new direction to your life. Someone once said that knowledge lies in piling up facts, but it is wisdom that simplifies it.
Knowledge is important, but wisdom is even more important than that. Even happiness is incomplete without wisdom.
Almost all great men and women have said at least something about or related to wisdom. Here are our favorite wisdom quotes for you to learn from or to share with your friends and loved ones.
Quotes about Wisdom
1.) Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Lord Tennyson
2.) Knowledge is flour, but wisdom is bread.
Austin O’Malley
3.) In seeking wisdom, thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it – thou art a fool.
Lord Chesterfield
4.) One should speak little with others and much with oneself.
Danish Proverb
5.) Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.
Theodore Roosevelt
6.) Be as smart as you can, but remember that it is always better to be wise than to be smart.
Alan Alda
Good Wisdom Quotes
7.) Any fool can know. The point is to understand.
Albert Einstein
8.) The aim of education is the knowledge, not of facts, but of values.
William S. Burroughs
9.) A day of traveling will bring a basketful of learning.
Vietnamese Proverb
10.) Knowledge is power, and enthusiasm pulls the switch.
Steve Droke
11.) No thief, however skillful, can rob one of knowledge, and that is why knowledge is the best and safest treasure to acquire.
L. Frank Baum
12.) Doubt is the key to knowledge.
Iranian Proverb
13.) Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.
Nigerian Proverb
14.) Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.
Anton Chekhov
15.) An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin
Check out these Words of Wisdom.
Knowledge Quotations
16.) Instead of seeking new landscapes, develop new eyes.
Marcel Proust
17.) The old believe everything; the middle-aged suspect everything, the young know everything.
Oscar Wilde
18.) Confidence is ignorance. If you’re feeling cocky, it’s because there’s something you don’t know.
Eoin Colfer
19.) The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
20.) Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
Samuel Johnson
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Knowledgeable
21.) Zeal without knowledge is fire without light.
Thomas Fuller
22.) The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance; it is the illusion of knowledge.
Daniel J. Boorstin
23.) It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.
Albert Einstein
24.) Knowledge is power.
Francis Bacon
25.) Nourish the mind like you would your body. The mind cannot survive on junk food.
Jim Rohn
26.) Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.
Isaac Asimov
27.) The only source of knowledge is experience.
Albert Einstein
28.) To know that we know what we know and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.
Henry David Thoreau
Tip: Consider using some of these wisdom quotes for graduation photo captions.
Wise Sayings
29.) In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Abraham Lincoln
30.) A blind person who sees is better than a seeing person who is blind.
Iranian Proverb
31.) Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.
Eckhart Tolle
32.) The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn’t being said.
Peter Drucker
33.) A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.
Lord John Russell
34.) The wise man hath his thoughts in his head; the fool, on his tongue.
Ivan Panin
35.) The only disability in life is a bad attitude.
Scott Hamilton – Check out Disabled Quotes
36.) All’s well that ends well.
John Heywood
37.) Deal with the faults of others as gently as your own.
Chinese Proverb
38.) An intelligent man believes only half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half.
Evan Esar
39.) Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
George Bernard Shaw
40.) Even a fish wouldn’t get into trouble if it kept its mouth shut.
Korean Proverb
41.) Look about my son, and see how little wisdom it takes to govern the world.
Axel Oxenstierna
42.) Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat forever.
Chinese Proverb
43.) Be very slow to believe that you are wiser than all others; it is a fatal but common error.
Charles Caleb Colton
44.) Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
Confucius
Best Wisdom Quotes
45.) The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
Socrates – one of the ultimate wisdom quotes!
46.) Wisdom is the daughter of experience.
Leonardo Da Vinci
47.) All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
Henry David Thoreau
48.) The difference between a wise and foolish man is this–the former sees much, thinks much, and speaks little; but the latter speaks more than he either sees or thinks.
William Scott Downey
Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop than when we soar.
William Wordsworth
49.) Wisdom comes only through suffering.
Aeschylus
50.) Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.
Norman Cousins
51.) Wisdom is a treasure; the key whereof is never lost.
Edward Counsel
52.) Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.
Jimi Hendrix
53.) There is a wisdom of the head, and there is a wisdom of the Heart.
Charles Dickens
54.) Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
Sophocles
55.) Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
Doug Larson
56.) It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
Henry David Thoreau
Sage Sayings
57.) Like water in the desert is wisdom to the soul.
Edward Counsel
58.) The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.
Cicero
59.) It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: The music is nothing if the audience is deaf.
Walter Lippmann
60.) Wisdom is knowing what to do next; skill is knowing how to do it, and virtue is doing it.
David Starr Jordan
61.) Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant
62.) Wisdom is understanding when to ask questions.
Brian Herbert & Kevin J. Anderson
63.) We are made wise not by the recollection of our past but by the responsibility for our future.
George Bernard Shaw
Smart Quotes
64.) Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.
Bill Gates
65.) Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
George Bernard Shaw
66.) Ability has nothing to do with opportunity.
Napoleon Bonaparte
67.) A smart man makes a mistake, learns from it, and never makes that mistake again. But a wise man finds a smart man and learns from him how to avoid the mistake altogether.
Roy H. Williams
68.) The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world, the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
69.) A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
John C. Maxwell
70.) To generalize is to be an idiot.
William Blake
71.) I’m not the smartest fellow in the world, but I can sure pick smart colleagues.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
72.) I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.
Hippolyte Taine
73.) Half of being smart is knowing what you are dumb about.
Solomon Short
74.) It’s like the smarter you are; the more things can scare you.
Katherine Paterson
Learned Words
75.) I was a smart kid, but I hated school.
Eminem
76.) The only freedom you truly have is in your mind, so use it.
M.T. Dismuke
77.) Being aware of your fear is smart. Overcoming it is the mark of a successful person.
Seth Godin
78.) Giving up is always an option, but not always a failure.
Cameron Conaway
79.) I’m lazy! I hate work! Hate hard work in all its forms! Clever shortcuts, that’s all I’m about!
Eliezer Yudkowsky
Intelligence Quotations
80.) The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.
Albert Einstein
81.) There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination, and wonder.
Ronald Reagan
82.) A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.
Saul Bellow
83.) Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.
Henry Ford
84.) By the way, intelligence to me isn’t just being book-smart or having a college degree; it’s trusting your gut instincts, being intuitive, thinking outside the box, and sometimes just realizing that things need to change and being smart enough to change it.
Tabatha Coffey
85.) Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.
Michael Jordan
86.) Talent hits a target no one else can hit; Genius hits a target no one else can see.
Arthur Schopenhauer
87.) Intelligence is the ability to adapt to change.
Stephen Hawking
88.) I know that I am intelligent because I know that I know nothing.
Socrates – The wisdom quotes master
89.) The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Inspirational Wisdom Quotes
90.) The wise person doesn’t give the right answers, but poses the right questions.
Claude Levi-Strauss
91.) The older you get, the more fragile you understand life to be. I think that’s good motivation for getting out of bed joyfully each day.
Julia Roberts
92.) Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.
Mary Anne Radmacher
93.) My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.
Maya Angelou
94.) Real courage is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking. Doing the unpopular thing because it’s what you believe, and the heck with everybody.
Justin Cronin
95.) You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.
Marcus Aurelius
Famous Quotes
96.) Success is not final; failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts.
Winston S. Churchill
97.) Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.
Henry David Thoreau
98.) The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
99.) Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.
Albert Einstein
100.) By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
Confucius
101.) I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear.
Rosa Park
Motivational Quotes
102.) Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day.
Zen Proverb
103.) Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.
Steve Jobs
104.) It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation.
Herman Melville
105.) If you want to achieve excellence, you can get there today. As of this second, quit doing less-than-excellent work.
Thomas J. Watson
Short Wisdom Quotes
106.) Knowledge is love and light and vision.
Helen Keller
107.) I do not pray for success. I ask for faithfulness.
Mother Teresa
108.) I would rather die of passion than of boredom.
Vincent van Gogh
109.) The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.
Oprah Winfrey
110.) You will face many defeats in life, but never let yourself be defeated.
Maya Angelou
111.) An unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates
112.) Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.
Babe Ruth
113.) A happy life consists in the tranquility of mind.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
114.) Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is.
Vince Lombardi
Positive Wisdom Quotes
115.) Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the little voice at the end of the day that says I’ll try again tomorrow.
Mary Anne Radmacher
116.) Don’t look at your feet to see if you are doing it right. Just dance.
Anne Lamott
117.) It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
118.) Champions keep playing until they get it right.
Billie Jean King
119.) Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist but in the ability to start over.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
120.) Always be a first-rate version of yourself and not a second-rate version of someone else.
Judy Garland
By Michael O’Halloran
Michael O’Halloran founded Greeting Card Poet in 2014 and has worked as its publisher and editor ever since. He has co-authored four books on kids’ trivia and four on coaching. Previously, Michael was the president of Magnetic Poetry. He has invented and brought to market over 75 new gift and toy products, most of which involve wordplay. Mike is married and a father of four daughters.
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