Spring 2009 Wisdom Course Wise Sayings

Return to Wisdom

• 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