Wisdom quotes

Return to Wisdom

• Erik Erikson, ""wisdom is detached concernwith life itself in the face of death itself (in Ardelt 2003)
• Wisdom is like a book you can't quite read.
• The grass is never greener on the other side.
• A penny saved is a penny earned.
• Don't worry, be happy.
• We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
• What is wise is one thing, to understand rightly how all things are steered through all. -Heraclitus DK fr. 41.
• Wisdom is to speak the truth and to act according to nature, with understanding' -Heraclitus fr. 112.
• All men suppose what is called wisdom to deal with the first causes and the principles of things. Aristotle, Metaphysics 981b27
• Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards attaining it. —Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus
• Tranquility of thought comes through the cultivation of friendship, compassion, joy, and impartiality in spheres of pleasure or pain, virtue or vice. (Yoga Sutras 33)
• "Wisdom is what you need to understand in order to live well and cope with the central problems and avoid the dangers in the predicament(s) human beings find themselves in," Robert Nozick, The Examined Life
• "The light of wisdom comes from mastery of perfect discipline." (YS 3.5)
• Confucius said: There are three things the nobler type of man is on his guard against. In the period of youth, before his physical nature has settled down, he guards against lust. Having reached his prime, when his physical nature has now attained its mature strength, he guards against combativeness. When he has reached old age, and hisphysical nature is already decaying, he guards against acquisitiveness.'
• The philosopher Tseng said: 'I daily examine myself on three points,- In planning for Others have I failed in conscientiousness? In intercourse with friends have I been insincere? And have I failed to practice what I have been taught?