Famously Said Random quote

Quotes about wisdom

352 quotes from 209 people

Most readBy personPage 11 of 24

Treat the people with ease and don’t be hard on them; give them glad tidings and don’t fill them with aversion; and love each other, and don’t differ.
MMuhammad571–632Sahih Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 52, Number 275
- Advice
- Leadership
At the same time that I think discretion the most useful talent a man can be master of, I look upon cunning to be the accomplishment of little, mean, ungenerous minds.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator, No. 225 (17 November 1711)
- Character
A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men.
Henry David Thoreau1817–1862Civil Disobedience (1849)In context
- Democracy
There are many more shining qualities in the mind of man, but there is none so useful as discretion.
Joseph Addison1672–1719The Spectator, No. 225 (17 November 1711)
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be, I learned in kindergarten.
Robert Fulghumborn 1937All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1986)
- Education
Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Sketches by Boz (1836), Characters, Ch. 2: A Christmas Dinner
- Advice
- Happiness
We pass. But what the bee knows, the wisdom that sustains our passing life — however much we deny or ignore it — that for ever remains.
P. L. Travers1899–1996What the Bee Knows: Reflections on Myth, Symbol, and Story (1989)
Bestow therefore thy youth so, that thou mayest have comfort to remember it when it hath forsaken thee, and not sigh and grieve at the account thereof.
Walter Raleigh1552–1618Instructions to his Son and to Posterity (published 1632), Chapter II
- Advice
- Youth
If you don’t give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don’t hurt you anymore — and you actually have power over those people.
Stephen Colbertborn 1964Stephen Colbert—It Gets Better (13 July 2011)
- Advice
- Power
If you want a golden rule that will fit everybody, this is it: Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful.
William Morris1834–1896“The Beauty of Life”, a lecture before the Birmingham Society of Arts and School of Design (19 February 1880), later published in Hopes and Fears for Art: Five Lectures Delivered in Birmingham, London, and Nottingham, 1878–1881 (1882)
- Advice
- Beauty
Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass wherever you may be.
Robert Fulghumborn 1937It Was on Fire When I Lay Down on It (1988)
- Advice
Sing the melody line you hear in your own head. Remember, you don’t owe anybody any explanations, you don’t owe your parents any explanations, you don’t owe your professors any explanations.
Bonoborn 1960PENN Address (2004)
- Advice
He who praises everybody praises nobody.
Samuel Johnson1709–1784Johnson’s Works (1787), vol. XI, p. 216
The silence of a wise man is always meaningful.
Leo Strauss1899–1973Thoughts on Machiavelli (1958), p. 30
Don’t start an argument with somebody who has a microphone when you don’t. They’ll make you look like chopped liver.
Harlan Ellison1934–2018IguanaCon Guest of Honor speech, Phoenix, Arizona, (1978)
- Advice
- Debate