There is no wisdom without leisure. Ancient Jewish Proverb, cited W B Yeats
Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before. Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle
To acquire knowledge, one must study;
but to acquire wisdom, one must observe. Marilyn Vos Savant
A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser. Not just more knowledgeable – books that provide nothing but information can produce that result. But wiser, in the sense that you are more deeply aware of the great and enduring truths of human life. Mortimer J Adler, How to Read a Book
You can never know everything. Part of what you know is always wrong. Perhaps the most important part. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of knowledge lies in going on anyway. Robert Jordan
The offer of certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet; that I haven’t understood enough; that I can’t know enough; that I’m always hungrily operating on the margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Christopher Hitchens
Wisdom … comes not from age, but from education and learning. Anton Chekhov
A man, though wise, should never be ashamed of learning more, and must unbend his mind. Sophocles, Antigone
Wisdom outweighs any wealth. ibid.
Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else ... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha
No man can reveal to you aught but that which already lies half asleep in the dawning of your knowledge.
The teacher who walks in the shadow of the temple, among his followers, gives not of his wisdom but rather of his faith and his lovingness.
If he is indeed wise he does not bid you enter the house of his wisdom, but rather leads you to the threshold of your own mind. Kahlil Gilbran, The Prophet
Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it. Albert Einstein
Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? T S Eliot
Data is not information, information is not knowledge, knowledge is not understanding, understanding is not wisdom. Clifford Stoll
We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely. E O Wilson
Music is ... a higher revelation than all Wisdom & Philosophy. Ludwig van Beethoven
To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust. Henry David Thoreau
All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man. Henry David Thoreau
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche
Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit. Baltasar Gracian
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
He [Da Vinci] privileged observation over perceived wisdom. Professor Rona Goffen, Rutgers University
Age and wisdom have their graces. Star Trek: The Next Generation s1e16: Too Short a Season
A loving heart is the truest wisdom. Charles Dickens
But goodness alone is never enough. A hard, cold wisdom is required for goodness to accomplish good. Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil. Robert A Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land
The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Let me finish my question please. There’s hands going up and I’m kind of getting old and you know, I’m just getting into my peroration ... Look it up. George W Bush
The wisest men follow their own direction. Euripides
The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the powers in and around us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. Euripides
History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they’ve exhausted all other alternatives. Abba Eban, Israeli diplomat, cited The Times 17th December 1970
Be wisely worldly; be not worldly wise. Francis Quarles, Emblems, 1635
Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best ends by the best means. Francis Hutcheson, An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 1725
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook. P D James, The Principles of Psychology
Dost thou not know, my son, with how little wisdom the world is governed. Count Oxenstierna, 1583-1654, Swedish statesman
Be wise to-day; ’tis madness to defer. Edward Young, Night Thoughts, 1942-5
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. Aristotle
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing. Socrates
Wonder is the beginning of wisdom. Socrates
Knowledge speaks, but Wisdom listens. Jimi Hendrix
It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err. Mahatma Gandhi
Nowadays most people die of a sort of creeping common sense, and discover when it is too late that the only things one never regrets are one’s mistakes. Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise. George R R Martin
Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling. C G Jung
A wise man therefore proportions his belief to the evidence. David Hume
I don’t think it would have all got me quite so down if just once in a while – just once in a while – there was at least some polite little perfunctory implication that knowledge should lead to wisdom, and that if it doesn’t, it’s just a disgusting waste of time! But there never is! You never even hear any hints dropped on a campus that wisdom is supposed to be the goal of knowledge. You hardly ever even hear the word wisdom mentioned! J D Salinger, Franny and Zooey