All around the world, you can find incredibly intelligent individuals. From brilliant mathematicians to crafty researchers and explorers, these people challenge the status quo and push the boundaries of the unknown. At the same time, however, just because someone is exceptionally intelligent and astute does not necessarily mean they are wise as well. Quite the contrary, one can have an IQ that is above average but lack any emotional intelligence, foresight, and wisdom. Our collection of insightful wisdom quotes will give you a better understanding of what it means to be a wise person. Even more so, these words of wisdom contain wise lessons that can be pretty helpful in life. You may also like our 11 Wise Lessons Filled with Wisdom for Life.
What exactly is wisdom and what does it mean to be a wise person? The inherent problem about wisdom is that it is quite difficult to describe and define. It is a broad concept with many different nuances and characteristics. Wisdom is broadly described as a person’s ability to use their experiences and knowledge in order to make sound decisions. However, wisdom is so much more than just being a good decision-maker. In fact, wisdom also means that an individual has developed sound observations about life in general and a high tolerance about life’s uncertainties.
“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
Isaac Asimov
Thanks to their profound insights on life, wise individuals benefit from an astonishing calmness during times of great difficulty. They also share a distinctive optimism and the inherent attitude that the challenges they are confronted with can be overcome.
Enjoy the following wise sayings and wisdom quotes
While many intelligent people have a narrowed down focus in their respective fields of expertise, wise individuals desire to understand the big picture. Even more so, individuals with great wisdom are introspective in nature and tend to reflect on their experiences. As such, they have developed nuanced ways of thinking and understand the importance of balance.
110 Insightful Wisdom Quotes and Wise Words
Listening to the words of wisdom of a sage and their insightful observations on life can prove to be quite valuable. Wisdom quotes are especially helpful for this because they condense profound insights on life in one or two sentences. What is especially beautiful about the following collection of wise words is that they skillfully summarize the vast experiences and observations of exceptional individuals.
To give you a better overview, we’ve categorized this collection into the following sections:
Here are these powerful words of wisdom quotes:
1.
“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.”
Aristotle
2.
“It is not true that people stop pursuing dreams because they grow old, they grow old because they stop pursuing dreams.”
Gabriel García Márquez
3.
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
Confucious
4.
“The public have an insatiable curiosity to know everything, except what is worth knowing.”
Oscar Wilde
5.
“Well, I must endure the presence of a few caterpillars if I wish to become acquainted with the butterflies.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
6.
“The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
Dan Millman
7.
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform (or pause and reflect).”
Mark Twain
8.
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
John Lennon
9.
“Do you not see how necessary a world of pains and troubles is to school an intelligence and make it a soul?”
John Keats
10.
“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.”
Albert Einstein
11.
“The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.”
Thomas Szasz
12.
“It doesn’t matter where you are coming from. All that matters is where you are going.”
Brian Tracy
13.
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare
14.
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
Aristotle
15.
“Education is no substitute for intelligence.”
Frank Herbert
16.
“Lost Time is never found again.”
Benjamin Franklin
17.
“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.”
Albert Einstein
18.
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.”
Plato
19.
“It is better to remain silent at the risk of being thought a fool, than to talk and remove all doubt of it.”
Maurice Switzer
20.
“Think before you speak. Read before you think.”
Fran Lebowitz
21.
“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”
Lao Tzu
22.
“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.”
Jimi Hendrix
23.
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
Leo Tolstoy
24.
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
Rumi
25.
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
Socrates
26.
“Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling.”
Carl Gustav Jung
27.
“Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
28.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
29.
“The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
Dan Millman
30.
“You do not write your life with words… You write it with actions. What you think is not important. It is only important what you do.”
Patrick Ness
31.
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
Oscar Wilde
32.
“He who knows all the answers has not been asked all the questions.”
Confucius
33.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.”
Bill Keane
34.
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
Socrates
35.
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
36.
“Wisdom is having things right in your life and knowing why.”
William Stafford
37.
“Authority without wisdom is like a heavy ax without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.”
Anne Bradstreet
38.
“Wisdom… comes not from age, but from education and learning.”
Anton Chekhov
39.
“One, remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Two, never give up work. Work gives you meaning and purpose and life is empty without it. Three, if you are lucky enough to find love, remember it is there and don’t throw it away.”
Stephen Hawking
40.
“The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.”
Paulo Coelho
41.
“If you try to change it, you will ruin it. Try to hold it, and you will lose it.”
Lao Tzu
42.
“I cannot teach anybody anything. I can only make them think.”
Socrates
43.
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller
44.
“The great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
45.
“A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise.”
Dhammapada
46.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.”
Albert Einstein
47.
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.”
Mahatma Gandhi
48.
“The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
Plato
49.
“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.”
Santosh Kalwar
50.
“The wisest are the most annoyed at the loss of time.”
Dante Alighieri
51.
“Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
Lao Tsu
52.
“We are addicted to our thoughts. We cannot change anything if we cannot change our thinking.”
Santosh Kalwar
53.
“We must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Martin Luther King Jr.
54.
“I started my life with a single absolute: that the world was mine to shape in the image of my highest values and never to be given up to a lesser standard, no matter how long or hard the struggle.”
Ayn Rand
55.
“The day the power of love overrules the love of power, the world will know peace.”
Mahatma Gandhi
56.
“Man is a mystery. It needs to be unraveled, and if you spend your whole life unraveling it, don’t say that you’ve wasted time. I am studying that mystery because I want to be a human being.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
57.
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
Socrates
58.
“Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
Steve Jobs
59.
“It takes a great man to be a good listener.”
Calvin Coolidge
60.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
61.
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
Francis Bacon
62.
“The only man who never makes mistakes is the man who never does anything.”
Theodore Roosevelt
63.
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
Albert Einstein
Wisdom quotes about life
64.
“And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”
Haruki Murakami
65.
“The flame that burns Twice as bright burns half as long.”
Lao Tzu
66.
“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”
Mae West
67.
“Risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing.”
Leo F. Buscaglia
68.
“We learn from failure, not from success!”
Bram Stoker
69.
“Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
Steve Maraboli
70.
“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
George Bernard Shaw
71.
“Though nobody can go back and make a new beginning… Anyone can start over and make a new ending.”
Chico Xavier
72.
“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.”
Roy T. Bennett
73.
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
Robert Frost
74.
“Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.”
Aldous Huxley
75.
“If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.”
Lev Grossman
76.
“Searching means having a goal, but finding means being free, being open, having no goal… because in striving for your goal there are many things you do not see, which are directly in front of your eyes.”
Hermann Hesse
77.
“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
Albert Einstein
78.
“The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you.”
Peter Shaffer
79.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.”
Albert Einstein
80.
“You’ve gotta dance like there’s nobody watching,
Love like you’ll never be hurt,
Sing like there’s nobody listening,
And live like it’s heaven on earth.”
William W. Purkey
81.
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can’t practice any other virtue consistently.”
Maya Angelou
82.
“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”
Plato
83.
“Instead of worrying about what you cannot control, shift your energy to what you can create.”
Roy T. Bennett
84.
“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
Wisdom quotes from the Bible
85.
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; all who follow his precepts have good understanding. To him belongs eternal praise.”
Psalm 111:10
86.
“The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song.”
Psalm 28:7
87.
“Wisdom belongs to the aged, and understanding to the old.”
Job 12:12
88.
“Do not forsake wisdom, and she will protect you; love her, and she will watch over you. Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.”
Proverbs 4:6-7
89.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
Jeremiah 29:11
90.
“The godly offer good counsel; they teach right from wrong.”
Psalm 37:30
91.
“Wisdom rests in the heart of him who has understanding, but what is in the heart of fools is made known.”
Proverbs 14:33
92.
“Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.”
Job 28:28
Funny wisdom quotes
93.
“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucius
94.
“If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.”
Mark Twain
95.
“Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get.”
Ray Kroc
96.
“If you ever find yourself in the wrong story, leave.”
Mo Willems
97.
“I think I’ve discovered the secret of life – you just hang around until you get used to it.”
Charles Schultz
98.
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.”
Mark Twain
99.
“Never lie in bed at night asking yourself questions you can’t answer.”
Charles M. Schulz
100.
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
Joe Klaas
101.
“Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about these things. What women like is to be a man’s last romance.”
Oscar Wilde
102.
“I’d much rather be a woman than a man. Women can cry, they can wear cute clothes, and they are the first to be rescued off of sinking ships.”
Gilda Radner
103.
“It’s better to keep your mouth shut and appear stupid than open it and remove all doubt”
Mark Twain
104.
“Growing old is mandatory. Growing up is optional.”
Chili Davis
105.
“Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile.”
Billy Sunday
106.
“I have noticed that the people who are late are often so much jollier than the people who have to wait for them.”
E. V. Lucas
107.
“There’s a name for people with an interest in the moon, they’re called lunatics.”
Anthony Horowitz
108.
“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”
Patrick Rothfuss
109.
“If you’re too open-minded; your brains will fall out.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
110.
“He who laughs last… just didn’t get the joke.”
Carroll Bryant
I hope you enjoyed this collection of inspirational wisdom quotes and wise words. What are your favorite quotes that are brimming with insightful knowledge?
Stay victorious!
1 Comment
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