Pearls of Wisdom : wisdom

"If I meet a hundred-year-old man and I have something to teach him, I will teach; if I meet an eight-year-old boy and he has something to teach me, I will learn."

~Chao-Chou

"The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears."

~John Vance Cheney
poet (1848—1922)

"Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give lustre, and many more people see than weigh."

"Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when asked."

~Lord Chesterfield
(1694—1773)

"Saepe ne utile quidem est scire quid futurum sit."
Often it is not even advantageous to know what will be.

~Marcus Tullius Cicero
(ca. 106—43 BCE)

"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."

to Dr. Franklin on "Babylon 5: A Late Delivery from Avalon"

~Marcus Cole

"If you would stand well with a great mind, leave him with a favorable impression of yourself; if with a little mind, leave him with a favorable impression of himself."

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge
poet & philosopher (1772—1834)

"Learning without thought is labor lost, Thought without learning is perilous."

"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."

~(Kung Fu-tse) Confucius
philosopher & teacher (ca. 551—478 BCE)

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives."

~Abba Eban

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by the age eighteen."

"Imagination is more important than knowledge."

"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

"The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them."

"Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

"It is a miracle curiosity survives formal education."

~Albert Einstein
physicist (1879—1955)

"Time spent pondering your world view is time not spent viewing the world."

~Dave as Father Dog on nlist

"When you are deluded and full of doubt, even a thousand books of scripture are not enough. When you have realized understanding, even one word is too much."

~Fen-Yang

"The purpose of education is to replace an empty mind with an open one."

~Malcom Forbes

"Live as if your were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever."

~Mahatma Gandhi
(1869—1848)

"It's just far from average... but not as uncommon as you might think."

~Dan Greenberg

"Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history."

~Hegel

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens."

~Jimi Hendrix

"The hardest to learn was the least complicated."

"Least Complicated"

~Indigo Girls

"Only some of us learn from other people's mistakes; the rest of us have to be the other people."

~Barbera Johnson

"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day."

Tao Te Ching, ch. 48

"If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold onto."

Tao Te Ching

~Lao-tse

"When all men think alike, no one thinks very much."

~Walter Lippman

"The average person thinks he isn't."

~Father Larry Lorenzoni

"I have never in my life learned anything from any man who agreed with me."

~Dudley Field Malone

"If you make people think they are thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you."

~Don Marquis

"A gentleman need not know Latin, but he should at least have forgotten it."

~Brander Matthews

"Common knowledge is commonly wrong."

Pyramid discussion boards

~McCarty-Eigenmann

"In expanding the field of knowledge we increase the horizon of ignorance."

~Henry Miller

"He who would be cured of ignorance must confess it."

~Michel de Montaigne
(1533—1592)

"To argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead."

~Thomas Paine

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle."

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something."

~Plato
(429—347 BCE)

"To be brave in the face of misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in the face of misfortune is to conquer fate."

~Agnes Repplier

"The best advice I ever received was from a friend, who once told me, 'You can have anything you want. You just can't have everything you want.' "

~John Roger & Peter McWilliams

"The lord works in mysterious ways... so does the devil."

~Alicia Romano

"Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you're climbing it."

"I've learned that it is best to give advice in only two circumstances; when it is requested and when it is a life-threatening situation."

~Andy Rooney

"Kings stand more in need of the company of the intelligent than the intelligent do of the society of kings."

"The Rose Garden (Gulistan)"

~Saadi
poet (1184—1291)

"It does not matter how many books you have, but how good the books are which you have."

"We learn not in school, but in life."

"No man ever became wise by chance."

"Nullum magnum ingenium sine mixtura dementiae fuit."
There is no great genius without some touch of madness.

"De Tranquillitate Animi"

~Lucius Annaeus Seneca
(ca. 4 BCE—65 CE)

"It is no profit to have learned well, if you neglect to do well."

~Publius Syrus

"The man who is a pessimist before forty-eight knows too much; if he is an optimist after it, he knows too little."

"All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure."

"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."

"Ignorant people think it is the noise which fighting cats make that is so aggravating, but it ain't so; it is the sickening grammar that they use."

"There is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream, a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought? A vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

~Samuel Langhome Clemens aka Mark Twain
(1835—1910)

"We are all ignorant about different things."

~Unknown

"He must be very ignorant if he answers every question he is asked."

~François-Marie Arouet aka Voltaire
author & philosopher (1694—1778)

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be."

~Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
novelist

"As the Apostle Paul so succinctly put it, 'All things are possible, but not all things are expedient'."

~Larry Wall
designer of Perl

"Life is far too important a thing to ever talk seriously about it."

Lord Darlington, "Lady Windermere's Fan"

"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes."

Mr. Dumby, "Lady Windermere's Fan"

"Only the shallow shall know themselves."

"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask and he will tell the truth."

~Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde
poet, novelist, & playwright (1854—1900)

"It only takes 20 years for a liberal to become a conservative without changing a single idea."

~Robert Anton Wilson

[ < < i n d e x > > ]