Quotes about wisdom
352 quotes from 209 people
Gore Vidal1925–2012“Writing Plays for Television” in New World Writing, #10 (1956)
Alexander Pope1688–1744Thoughts on Various Subjects (1727)
Ambrose Bierce1842–1914The Devil’s Dictionary (1911)
John Donne1572–1631Songs and Sonnets
John Steinbeck1902–1968The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), Part One, Ch. VI
Miyamoto Musashi1584–1645Dokkodo
Benjamin Disraeli1804–1881Endymion (1880), Ch. 85.
Anatole France1844–1924The Literary Life (1888-1892), Series III: Rabelais
Martin Luther King Jr.1929–1968The Rising Tide of Racial Consciousnes (1960)
Henry Ward Beecher1813–1887Life Thoughts (1858), p. 190
Philip K. Dick1928–1982Clans of the Alphane Moon (1964), Chapter 11 (p. 196)Our dignity is not in what we do, but in what we understand.
George Santayana1863–1952The Genteel Tradition in American Philosophy (1911), p. 50Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters.
Seneca the Younger5 BC–AD 65Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter XLVII: On master and slave, Line 11Experience comprises illusions lost, rather than wisdom gained.
Joseph Roux1834–1905Meditations of a Parish Priest (1866), Part 4, XXVIII (1886)Avoid shame, but do not seek glory: nothing so expensive as glory.
Sydney Smith1771–1845Lady Holland’s Memoir (1855), Vol. I, ch. 4, pp. 134–135