Inspirational Quotes on Wisdom

“The humility of wisdom is the happy consciousness that all things come from God, are sustained by God, and exist for God. This wisdom is rooted in the pride-destroying, joy-giving cross of Christ.”

“To what crime do you not drive the hearts of men, accursed hunger for gold?”

“Видишь, я тогда все се- бя спрашивал: зачем я так глуп, что если другие глу- пы и коли я знаю уж наверно, что они глупы, то сам не хочу быть умнее? Потом я узнал, Соня, что если ждать, пока все станут умными, то слишком уж дол- го будет… Потом я еще узнал, что никогда этого и не будет, что не переменятся люди, и не переделать их никому, и труда не стоит тратить! Да, это так! Это их закон… Закон, Соня! Это так!.. И я теперь знаю, Соня, что кто крепок и силен умом и духом, тот над ними и властелин! Кто много посмеет, тот у них и прав. Кто на большее может плюнуть, тот у них и законодатель, а кто больше всех может посметь, тот и всех правее! Так доселе велось и так всегда будет! Только слепой не разглядит!”

“Whenever he gives advice it is always something as startling as an epigram, and yet as practical as the Bank of England.”

“I look back upon my youth and realize how so many people gave me help, understanding, courage – very important things to me – and they never knew it. They entered into my life and became powers within me. All of us live spiritually by what others have given us, often unwittingly, in the significant hours of our life. At the time these significant hours may not even be perceived. We may not recognize them until years later when we look back, as one remembers some long-ago music or a boyhood landscape. We all owe to others much of the gentleness and wisdom that we have made our own; and we may well ask ourselves what will others owe to us.”

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”

“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. Intelligence plus character – that is the goal of true education.”

“I never knew, and never shall know, a worse man than myself.”

“Something wonderful has happened to me. I was carried up into the seventh heaven. There all the gods sat assembled. By special grace I was granted the favor of a wish. "Will you," said Mercury, "have youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the most beautiful maiden, or any of the other glories we have in the chest? Choose, but only one thing." For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed myself to the gods as follows: "Most honorable contemporaries, I choose this one thing, that I may always have the laugh on my side." Not one of the gods said a word, on the contrary, they all began to laugh. Hence, I concluded that my request was granted, and found that the gods knew how to express themselves with great taste; for it would hardly have been suitable for them to answer gravely: "It is granted thee.”

“So wise souls, leaving self behind move forward, and setting self aside stay centered. Why let the self go? To keep what the soul needs.”

“If you chase several hares at once, you won't overtake any one of them.”

“If you chase several hares at once, you won't undertake any one of them.”

“Of learned Fools I have seen ten times ten, Of unlearned wise men I have seen a hundred.”

“Courage is life's only measure.”

“Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.”

“‎Kalganov ran back into the front hall, sat down in a corner, bent his head, covered his face with his hands, and began to cry. He sat like that and cried for a long time--cried as though he were still a little boy and not a man of twenty... 'What are these people, what sort of people can there be after this!' he kept exclaiming incoherently, in bitter dejection, almost in despair. At that moment he did not even want to live in the world. 'Is it worth it, is it worth it!' the grieved young man kept exclaiming.”

“Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the Word, from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains to love of truth, love of humanity, and love of excellence. And so, in a word, being assimilated to God by participation in moral excellence, we must not retrograde into carelessness and sloth. But labor, and faint not.”

“Knowledge is the Treasure, but Judgment the Treasurer of a Wise Man.”

“The knowledge of Christ which is produced by man's own cleverness and wisdom is not a rock that can stand firm.”

“But if I am young, thou shouldest look to my merits, not to my years.”