Wisdom Quotes

The best minds across centuries have wrestled with what it means to be wise. These quotes capture their hard-won insights.

64329 quotes

A
"The measure of a society is how it treats the vulnerable."
Austin Clarke
F
"Everything is worth nothing to me except what cannot be kept."
Fernando Pessoa
F
"To be great, one must first understand smallness."
Fernando Pessoa
F
"Wisdom lies in knowing how little we truly know."
Fernando Pessoa
F
"Boredom is the price of understanding too much."
Fernando Pessoa
F
"Melancholy is the color of all true understanding."
Fernando Pessoa
J
"Knowledge without wisdom is merely the accumulation of facts in an empty vessel."
John Banville
J
"The human heart is a mystery even to itself, forever surprising us with its depths."
John Banville
J
"A man's virtue is often the fruit of his vices."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"Memory is the art of selective forgetting."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"The pursuit of perfection is the pursuit of madness."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"We mistake habit for happiness and tradition for truth."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"Wisdom whispers while folly shouts."
José María de Eça de Queirós
P
"The most powerful things in life are often the simplest."
Padraig Colum
P
"To understand another is to expand one's own understanding of life."
Padraig Colum
P
"The simplest wisdom is often the hardest to practice."
Padraig Colum
S
"All of us are mad, just in different ways, and it's this difference that saves us from absolute madness."
Saramago
L
"Wisdom whispers while folly shouts."
Luís de Camões
"Innocence is a kind of insanity"
Patrick Kavanagh
"The only way out of the labyrinth is through understanding"
Patrick Kavanagh
"Wisdom is knowing what you don't know"
Patrick Kavanagh
F
"To be great, one must first learn to be small."
Fernando Pessoa
F
"I have learned more from my failures than from any success."
Fernando Pessoa
J
"The world reveals itself only to those who stop trying to possess it."
John Banville
J
"The heart understands what the mind cannot grasp."
John Banville
J
"To understand is to forgive, but not always."
John Banville
J
"Wisdom comes from the wounds we've survived."
John Banville
J
"The world is a theater where mediocrity always finds its audience."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"The wise man knows that wisdom is an illusion."
José María de Eça de Queirós
J
"The wisest man is he who knows he is a fool."
José María de Eça de Queirós