On Wisdom

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• A good man says no slowly; a wise man says no at once.—Old Folk Saying
• A great leader molds public opinion; a wise leader listens to it.—Anonymous Saying
• A man is wise with the wisdom of his time only, and ignorant with its ignorance.—Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and naturalist
  (1817–1862) Journal, entry dated January 31, 1853
• A man never reaches that dizzy height of wisdom that he can no longer be led by the nose.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (pen name of Samuel Clemens) Mark Twain's Notebook
• A mistake, if understood, is but a step toward wisdom.—Anonymous Saying
  A short saying often contains much wisdom.—Sophocles, ancient Greek tragic playwright
  (ca. 495–406 B.C.E.) Aletes, Frag. 99.
• A single conversation across the table with a wise man is worth a month’s study of books.—Chinese Proverb
• A wise man hears one word and understands two.—Jewish proverb
• A wise man is more powerful than a strong man, and a man of knowledge than a man of might.—Bible, Proverbs 24:5
• A wise man knows everything; a shrewd one, everybody.—Anonymous Saying
• A wise man never knows all; only fools know everything—African Proverb
• A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can.—Michel de Montaigne, 16th-century French essayist
  (1533–1592) Essays, II
• A wise man thinks what he says; a fool says what he thinks.—Anonymous Saying
• A wise old owl sat in an oak. / The longer he sat, the less he spoke. / The less he spoke, the more he heard. / Why can’t we be like that wise old bird?—Nursery rhyme
• Be wisely worldly, be not worldly wise.—Francis Quarles, 17th-century English religious poet
  (1592–1644) Emblems
• Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.—Lord Chesterfield, 18th-century English statesman
  (1694–1773) (Philip Dormer Stanhope) Letter to His Son, Nov. 19, 1745
• Behold the fool saith, "Put not all thine eggs in the one basket"—which is but a manner of saying, "Scatter your money and your attention;" but the wise man saith, "Put all your eggs in the one basket and—WATCH THAT BASKET."—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (Samuel Clemens) Pudd'nHead Wilson
• Cuando el sabio yerra, el necio se alegra.—When the wise person errs, the fool rejoices.—Latino proverb
• Even a fool, if he holds his peace, is thought wise; keep your mouth shut and show your good sense.—Bible, Proverbs 17:28
• Every man is a damn fool for at least five minutes every day; wisdom consists in not exceeding the limit.—Elbert Hubbard, 19th-20th-century American writer and publisher
  (1856–1915) The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
• Experiences are savings which a miser puts aside. Wisdom is an inheritance which a wastrel cannot exhaust.—Karl Kraus, 20th-century Austrian playwright and poet
  (1874–1936) Sprüche und Widersprüche, ch. 4 (1909; tr. in "Lord, Forgive Them . . .," Half-Truths and One-And-A Half-Truths, ed. Harry Zohn, 1976)
• Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.—Bertrand Russell, 19th-20th-century English philosopher and mathematician
  (1872–1970) An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943)
• God give us grace to accept with serenity the things which cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed; and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.—Reinhold Niebuhr, 20th-century American religious and social thinker
  (1892–1971) attributed, perhaps 18th-century German saying
• Gray hair is a sign of age, not of wisdom.—Greek Proverb
• Happy he who has found wisdom, and the man who has acquired understanding; for wisdom is more profitable than silver, and the gain she brings is better than gold.—Bible, Proverbs 3:13-14
• He is truly wise who gains wisdom from another's mishap.—Publilius Syrus, 1st-century B.C.E. Roman writer
  (fl. 44 B.C.E.) Maxims, 825
• He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise; begin!—Horace, ancient Roman poet
  (65–8 B.C.E.) Epistles 1.2
• It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.—Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and naturalist
  (1817–1862) "Economy," Walden (1854)
• It is easier to be wise on behalf of others than to be so for ourselves.—François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French writer and moralist
  (1613–1680) Maxims (1665)
• It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.—Oliver Wendell Holmes, 19th-century American writer and physician;
  (1809–1894) The Poet at the Breakfast Table, ch. 10 (1872)
• It is wiser to find out than suppose.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (Samuel Clemens) More Maxims of Mark (1927)
• It requires wisdom to understand wisdom; the music is nothing if the audience is deaf.—Walter Lippmann, 20th-century American journalist
  (1889–1974) A Preface to Morals (1929) 3.15.2
• It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed "Wisdom." And then I know exactly what is going to follow: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."—Ludwig Wittgenstein, 20th-century Austrian-born British philosopher
  (1889–1951) Conversation (1934) (published in Personal Recollections, ch. 6, ed. Rush Rhees, 1981)
• It takes a wise man to recognize a wise man.—Xenophanes, ancient Greek philosopher
  (6th-5th century B.C.E.) quoted in Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of the Philosophers
• It's the height of folly to want to be the only wise one.—François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, 17th-century French writer and moralist
  (1613–1680) Sentences et Maximes Morales, no. 231 (1678)
• Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one, Have ofttimes no connection. Knowledge dwells In heads replete with thoughts of other men; Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.—William Cowper, 18th-century English poet
  (1731–1800) The Task
• Knowledge becomes wisdom only after it has been put to practical use.—Anonymous Saying
• Knowledge can be communicated, but wisdom cannot. A man can find it, he can live it, he can be filled and sustained by it, but he cannot communicate or teach it.—Hermann Hesse, 19th-20th-century German-Swiss novelist
  (1877–1962) "Govinda," Siddhartha (1923)
• Knowledge without wisdom is a load of books on the back of a donkey.—Japanese Proverb
• Look not mournfully into the Past. It comes not back again. Wisely improve the Present. It is thine.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist and philosopher
  (1803–1882) The Conduct of Life
• Make no mistake about this: if there is anyone among you who fancies himself wise – wise, I mean, by the standards of this passing age – he must become a fool to gain true wisdom. For the wisdom of this world is folly in God’s sight.—Bible, 1 Corinthians 3:18-19
• Man is wise ... when he recognizes no greater enemy than himself.—Margaret of Navarre,16th-century French poet and patron of literature
  (1492–1549) The Heptameron, or Novels of the Queen of Navarre (1558), novel XXX, the third day
• Man is wise only while in search of wisdom; when he imagines he has attained it, he is a fool.—Solomon Ibn Gabirol, 11th-century Jewish poet and philosopher in Spain
  (ca. 1022–ca. 1070) Choice of Pearls, no. 21 (c. 1050)
• Mixing one's wines may be a mistake, but old and new wisdom mix admirably.—Bertolt Brecht, 20th-century German playwright and poet
  (1898–1956) The Singer, in The Caucasian Chalk Circle, Prologue (1944)
• Never does nature say one thing and wisdom another.—Juvenal, 1st-2nd-century Roman poet
  (60–140) Satires
• Never give advice—a wise man won’t need it, a fool won’t heed it.—Anonymous Saying
• Nine-tenths of wisdom consists in being wise in time.—Theodore Roosevelt, 26th American president
  (1858–1919) Speech, 14 June 1917, Lincoln, Nebraska
• Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.—Sir Francis Bacon, 16th–17th-century English philosopher, essayist and statesman
  (1561–1626) Essays
• Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias carves it, Shakespeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it, Luther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist and philosopher
  (1803–1882) "Art," Society and Solitude (1870)
• Reason is the wise man’s guide, example the fool’s.—Welsh Proverb
• Reflexión es la madre de la sabiduria.—Reflection is the mother of wisdom.—Latino proverb
  Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.—English proverb
• Such is the nature of men, that howsoever they may acknowledge many others to be more witty, or more eloquent, or more learned; yet they will hardly believe there be many so wise as themselves.—Thomas Hobbes, 17th-century English philosopher
  (1588–1679) Leviathan, pt. 1, ch. 13 (1651)
• Tell (for you can) what is it to be wise? / 'T is but to know how little can be known; / To see all others' faults, and feel our own.—Alexander Pope, 17th–18th-century English poet
  (1688–1744) Essay on Man, Epistle iv, Line 260.
• The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.—William James, 19th-century American psychologist and philosopher
  (1842–1910) The Principles of Psychology
• The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.—Chinese Proverb
• The believer is happy; the doubter is wise.—Hungarian Proverb
• The clouds may drop down titles and estates; / Wealth may seek us; but wisdom must be sought.—Edward Young, 17th–18th-century English poet and dramatist
  (1683–1765) Night Thoughts, viii (1746)
• The doors of wisdom are never shut.—Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American statesman and inventor
  (1706–1790) Poor Richard’s Almanack (1755)
• The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.—Bible, Psalms 111:10
• The first thing is to acquire wisdom; gain understanding though it cost you all you have.—Bible, Proverbs 4:7
• The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.—Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman statesman, scholar, orator
  (106–43 B.C.E.) De Officiis 3.17.71 (44 B.C.E.)
• The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart.—Benjamin Franklin, 18th-century American statesman and inventor
  (1706–1790) Poor Richard’s Almanack (1732-57)
• The most certain sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness; her state is like that of things in the regions above the moon, always clear and serene.—Michel de Montaigne, 16th-century French essayist
  (1533–1592) Essays I.xxv (1580)
• The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.—Thomas Henry Huxley, 19th-century English biologist and educator
  (1825–1895) Science and Education IV
• The seat of knowledge is in the head; of wisdom, in the heart. We are sure to judge wrong if we do not feel right.—William Hazlitt, 18th–19th-century English essayist
  (1778–1830) Characteristics (1823), 380
• The wisdom of others remains dull till it is writ over with our own blood. We are essentially apart from the world; it bursts into our consciousness only when it sinks its teeth and nails into us.—Eric Hoffer, 20th-century American philosopher
  (1902–1983) The Passionate State of Mind, aph. 188 (1955)
• There are two sentences inscribed upon the Delphic oracle ..: "Know thyself," and "Nothing too much;" and upon these all other precepts depend.—Plutarch, 1st-century Greek biographer and essayist
  (ca. 46–120) Consolation to Apollonius
• There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.—Charles Caleb Colton, 19th-century English writer and clergyman
  (1780–1832) Lacon (1825), 1.326
• There often seems to be a playfulness to wise people, as if either their equanimity has as its source this playfulness or the playfulness flows from the equanimity; and they can persuade other people who are in a state of agitation to calm down and manage a smile.—Edward Hoagland, contemporary American writer and essayist
  (b. 1932) "Other Lives," Harper's (New York, July 1973; repr. in Heart's Desire, 1988)
• They would need to be already wise, in order to love wisdom.—Friedrich Schiller, 18th-century German poet
  (1759–1805) "Eighth Letter," On the Aesthetic Education of Man (1795)
• Thinking well is wise; planning well, wiser; doing well, wisest and best of all.—Persian Proverb
• Three things it is best to avoid: a strange dog, a flood, and a man who thinks he is wise.—Welsh Proverb
• Time ripens all things; no man is born wise.—Miguel de Cervantes, 16th–17th-century Spanish writer
  (1547–1616) Don Quixote II.33
• To know how to grow old is the master-work of wisdom, and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living.—Henri-Frédéric Amiel, 19th-century Swiss writer
  (1821–1881) Journal, entry for September 21, 1874
• To know That which before us lies in daily life, Is the prime Wisdom; what is more, is fume, Or emptiness, or fond impertinence.—John Milton, 17th-century English poet
  (1608–1674) Paradise Lost VIII.192 (1667)
• To know when to be generous and when to be firm—this is wisdom.—Elbert Hubbard, 19th-20th-century American writer and publisher
  (1856–1915) The Roycroft Dictionary and Book of Epigrams (1923)
• To wisdom belongs the intellectual apprehension of things eternal; to knowledge, the rational apprehension of things temporal.—Saint Augustine, 4th-5th-century Christian convert and bishop
  (354–430) On the Trinity (5th century)
• We chase phantoms half the days of our lives. It is well if we learn wisdom even then, and save the other half.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (Samuel Clemens) Letter to Orion Clemens, February 21, 1868
• We generally admire the wisdom of those who come to us for advice.—Anonymous Saying
• We have no words for speaking of wisdom to the stupid. He who understands the wise is wise already.—G.C. Lichtenberg, 18th-century German physicist and writer
  (1742–1799) "Notebook E," aph. 49, Aphorisms (written 1765-99; tr. R. J. Hollingdale, 1990)
• We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.—Mark Twain, 19th-century American writer
  (1835–1910) (Samuel Clemens) "Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar" 11, Following the Equator (1897)
• Well I am certainly wiser than this man. It is only too likely that neither of us has any knowledge to boast of; but he thinks that he knows something which he does not know, whereas I am quite conscious of my ignorance. At any rate it seems that I am wiser than he is to this small extent, that I do not think that I know what I do not know.—Socrates, ancient Greek philosopher
  (469–399 B.C.E.) Quoted in: Plato, Apology 19
• What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes. Take fifty of our current proverbial sayings—they are so trite, so threadbare.... None the less they embody the concentrated experience of the race, and the man who orders his life according to their teachings cannot be far wrong.... Has any man ever attained to inner harmony by pondering the experience of others? Not since the world began! He must pass through the fire.—Norman Douglas, 19th-20th-century British author
  (1868–1952) South Wind (1917)
• Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?—T.S. Eliot, 20th-century Anglo-American poet
  (1888–1965) "The Rock" 1, Selected Poems
• Who is wise? He who learns from every man.—Talmud: Avoth, 4.1
• Wisdom brings back the basic beliefs of eighteen.—Karl Shapiro, contemporary American poet and critic
  (b. 1913) The Bourgeois Poet, I.30 (1964)
• Wisdom consists of knowing when to avoid perfection.—Anonymous Saying
• Wisdom hath her excesses, and no less need of moderation than folly.—Michel de Montaigne, 16th-century French essayist
  (1533–1592) Essays, bk. 3, ch. 5, "Upon some Verses of Virgil" (tr. by John Florio, 1588)
• Wisdom is an affair of values, and of value judgments. It is intelligent conduct of human affairs.—Sidney Hook, 20th-century American philosopher, educator, and writer
  (b. 1902) "Does Philosophy Have a Future?" Saturday Review (1967, No. 11)
• Wisdom is knowing what to do next; virtue is doing it.—David Starr Jordan, 20th-century American biologist and educator
  (1851–1931) The Philosophy of Despair
• Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.—Ralph Waldo Emerson, 19th-century American essayist and philosopher
  (1803–1882) "Clubs," Society and Solitude (1870)
• Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop / Than when we soar.—William Wordsworth, 18th–19th-century English poet
  (1770–1850) The Excursion, iii.232 (repr. 1991)
• Wisdom is to live in the present, plan for the future, and profit from the past.—Anonymous Saying
• Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil – not the strength to choose between the two.—John Cheever, 20th-century American writer
  (1912–1982) "The Late Forties and the Fifties," The Journals (ed. Robert Gottlieb, 1991), entry from 1956
• Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.—Greek Proverb
• Yesterday is a canceled check; tomorrow is a promissory note; today is ready cash. Spend it wisely.—Anonymous Saying
• Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.—Lord Chesterfield, 18th-century English statesman
  (1694–1773) (Philip Dormer Stanhope) Letters to His Son

© 1998 KPOZ

Discussion Forum

The following statements have been made concerning wisdom:

• Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil – not the strength to choose between the two.—John Cheever, 20th-century American writer
  (1912–1982) "The Late Forties and the Fifties," The Journals (ed. Robert Gottlieb, 1991), entry from 1956
• It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.—Henry David Thoreau, 19th-century American essayist and naturalist
  (1817–1862) "Economy," Walden (1854)

Which author do you agree with, and why?

Please e-mail your comments to: anewhaus@earthlink.net