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Quotes about wisdom

352 quotes from 209 people

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Each of these private teachers who work for pay … inculcates nothing else than these opinions of the multitude which they opine when they are assembled and calls this knowledge wisdom.
Socrates470–399 BCPlato, Republic, 493a
- Education
I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed … from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty.
Socrates470–399 BCPlato, Symposium, 175d
He knows nothing, and thinks that he knows; I neither know nor think that I know.
Socrates470–399 BCThe Apology of Socrates (399 BC)
- Knowledge
Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
Solomon990–931 BCProverbs 3:13 (KJV)In context
- Happiness
Don’t be too hard on the envious. Be glad you have, or had in the past, something enviable.
Susan Sontag1933–2004Death Kit (1967), p.73 [Page numbers per the Penguin Modern Classics 2009 Edition]
- Advice
- Envy
It is no weakness for the wisest man
To learn when he is wrong.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone, Lines 710–711 (tr. E. F. Watling, 1947)
Alas, alas, what misery to be wise
When wisdom profits nothing!
Sophocles496–406 BCOedipus the King (c. 429 BC), spoken by TeiresiasIn context
For whoso thinks that wisdom dwells with him,
That he alone can speak or think aright,
Such oracles are empty breath when tried.
The wisest man will let himself be swayed
By others’ wisdom and relax in time.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by HaemonIn context
See how the trees beside a stream in flood
Save, if they yield to force, each spray unharmed,
But by resisting perish root and branch.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by HaemonIn context
- Advice
- Nature
To err is common
To all men, but the man who having erred
Hugs not his errors, but repents and seeks
The cure, is not a wastrel nor unwise.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by TeiresiasIn context
- Failure
Of happiness the chiefest part
Is a wise heart
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by ChorusIn context
- Happiness
Swelling words of high-flown might
Mightily the gods do smite.
Chastisement for errors past
Wisdom brings to age at last.
Sophocles496–406 BCAntigone (c. 441 BC), spoken by ChorusIn context
- Age
- Pride
If I could offer one piece of advice to young people thinking about their future, it would be this: Don’t preconceive. Find out what the opportunities are.
Thomas Sowellborn 1930Barbarians inside the Gates and Other Controversial Essays (1999)
- Advice
- Youth
A free man thinks of death least of all things; and his wisdom is a meditation not of death but of life.
Baruch Spinoza1632–1677Ethics (1677), Part IV, Prop. LXVII
- Life & Death
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
Charles Spurgeon1834–1892Often credited to Benjamin Franklin