Wise Quotes - Page 34

• The wise man lives as long as he ought, not so long as he can.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Long, Ought

  Michel de Montaigne, George Savile Marquis of Halifax (1743). “Montaigne's Essays in Three Books: With Notes and Quotations. And an Account of the Author's Life. With a Short Character of the Author and Translator”, p.22

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• I do know of these That therefore only are reputed wise For saying nothing.

  William Shakespeare

  Silence, Saying Nothing, Merchant Of Venice

  'The Merchant of Venice' (1596-8) act 1, sc. 1, l. 88

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• Fashion, n. A despot whom the wise ridicule and obey.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fashion, Ridicule, Despots

  Ambrose Bierce (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ambrose Bierce (Illustrated)”, p.2396, Delphi Classics

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• Society is a more level surface than we imagine. Wise men or absolute fools are hard to be met with, as there are few giants or dwarfs.

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Fool, Giants

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1470, Delphi Classics

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• Spend in pure converse our eternal day;
  Think each in each, immediately wise;
  Learn all we lacked before; hear, know, and say
  What this tumultuous body now denies;
  And feel, who have laid our groping hands away;
  And see, no longer blinded by our eyes.

  Rupert Brooke

  Eye, Thinking, Hands

  Rupert Brooke (2010). “Collected Poems”, p.114, The Oleander Press

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• God Almighty never created a man half as wise as he looks.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Men, Looks, Half

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• We were wise indeed, could we discern truly the signs of our own time; and by knowledge of its wants and advantages, wisely adjust our own position in it. Let us, instead of gazing idly into the obscure distance, look calmly around us, for a little, on the perplexed scene where we stand. Perhaps, on a more serious inspection, something of its perplexity will disappear, some of its distinctive characters and deeper tendencies more clearly reveal themselves; whereby our own relations to it, our own true aims and endeavors in it, may also become clearer.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Distance, Character, Gazing

  Thomas Carlyle (2014). “The Selected Works of Thomas Carlyle”, p.13, Lulu.com

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• It is natural for men to want power. But to seek power actively takes a temperament baffling to both the simple and the wise. The simple cannot fathom how any man would dare presume to prevail, while the wise are amazed that any reasonable man would want the world, assuming he could get it.

  Gore Vidal

  Men, Power, Simple

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• We must first pray, that God would make us wise; before we can wish, he would make us happy.

  Joseph Hall

  Wish, Firsts, Praying

  Joseph Hall, Josiah Pratt (1808). “The Works: Now First Collected : with Some Account of His Life and Sufferings. Devotional works”, p.65

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• There was never a wise saying that couldn't be made wiser by adding the words, "and vice-versa.

  Robert Breault

  Philosophical, Vices, Vice Versa

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• Ah! but the moods lie in his nature, my boy, just as much as his reflections did, and more. A man can never do anything at variance with his own nature. He carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.

  George Eliot

  Lying, Reflection, Boys

  George Eliot (2005). “Four Novels of George Eliot”, p.126, Wordsworth Editions

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• Wisdom is a condition of consciousness rather than an attitude of mind. Wisdom is that state of being in which an individual finds himself when realization has tinctured and transmuted all attitudes and opinions. A wise man is one who has experienced wisdom, wisdom in this sense being a mystical experience.

  Manly Hall

  Attitude, Men, Mystical Experiences

  Manly Palmer Hall (1935). “First Principles of Philosophy: The Science of Perfection”

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• A god could hardly love and be wise.

  Publilius Syrus

  Love, Being Wise

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• Festination may prove Precipitation;
  Deliberating delay may be wise cunctation.

  Thomas Browne

  Procrastination, Haste, Delay

  Sir Thomas Browne (1845). “Religio Medici: Together with a Letter to a Friend on the Death of His Intimate Friend and Christian Morals”, p.278

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• A wise man may be duped as well as a fool; but the fool publishes the triumph of his deceiver; the wise man is silent, and denies that triumph to an enemy which he would hardly concede to a friend; a triumph that proclaims his own defeat.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Triumph, May

  "Lacon: Or Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think".

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• The wise man, the sage, is hostile to the new. Disabused, he abdicates: that is his form of protest.

  Emile M. Cioran

  Men, Sage, Novelty

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• Walking is the favorite sport of the good and wise.

  A. L. Rowse

  Sports, Favorite Sports, Walking

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• What we are, and where we are, is God's providential arrange ment — God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made out of them.

  Frederick William Robertson

  Looks, Way, Faces

  "Sermons Preached at Trinity Chapel, Brighton".

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• To be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.

  Saadi

  Accomplishment, Wit, Facetious

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• Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Money, Men, Rely Upon

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• I believe each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor, so far as it in no wise interferes with any other mans rightsthat each community, as a State, has a right to do exactly as it pleases with all the concerns within that State that interfere with the right of no other State, and that the general government, upon principle, has no right to interfere with anything other than that general class of things that does concern the whole.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Believe, Class, Government

  Abraham Lincoln (2008). “Speeches and Letters of Abraham Lincoln(1832-1865) (Volume 1 of 2 ) (EasyRead Super Large 24pt Edition)”, p.255, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• To be free is not necessarily to be wise. Wisdom comes with counsel, with the frank and free conference of untrammeled men united in the common interest.

  Woodrow Wilson

  Wisdom, Men, Common

  Woodrow Wilson, Arthur Stanley Link, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, Princeton University (1978). “The papers of Woodrow Wilson”

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• To sense when a teenager needs understanding and when misunderstanding is a difficult and delicate task. The sad truth is that no matter how wise we are, we cannot be right for any length of time in our teenagers' eyes.

  Haim Ginott

  Teenager, Eye, Understanding

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• Wise parents know that fighting a teenager, like fighting a riptide, is inviting doom.

  Haim Ginott

  Teenager, Fighting, Parent

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• Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Wish, Cunning

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: including Boswell's Journal of a tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's diary of A journey into North Wales”, p.247

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