Wisdom Quotes

"If we are in a perilous situation, it is the result of our own folly."

"When the proposed Constitution was first made public, I was much struck with its general soundness."

"The people of this country are never to be trusted with the keys to their own jail."

"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind."

"The greatest part of the errors and follies to which mankind are subject, are owing entirely to false estimates of the comparative worth of different objects."

"Virtue is not always amiable."

"Credulous and gullible people are a danger to their own freedom."

"A man may be as much a fool from the want of sensibility as the want of sense."

"Moderation in all things is the golden mean."

"Mistakes will be made; they are inevitable; the important thing is to learn from them."

"Wisdom is the knowledge of things divine and human."

"In my younger days I was taught the great political lesson which experience constantly enforces."

"We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid."

"Beware of the young doctor and the old barber."

"Eat to live, do not live to eat."

"Remember not only to say the right thing in the right place, but far more difficult still, to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."

"The heart of a fool is in his mouth, but the mouth of a wise man is in his heart."

"For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe the horse was lost, and for the want of a horse the rider was lost."

"If you can't see the end, don't begin."

"A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right."

"To argue with a man who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead."

"Thought without reflection is like a journey without a destination."

"The instant formal government is short of wisdom, it perceives that nothing is done so well by the assistance of government."

"When once the principles of right and wrong are understood, the most foolish cannot mistake them."

"The mind is capable of being enlarged in proportion as the heart is enlarged."

"When we depart from the principles of our nature, we become self-enemies."

"Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom."

"All too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

"The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do."

"The purpose of opening the mind, as of opening the mouth, is to close it on something solid."