Wisdom Quotes

"Seek the company of those who seek the truth; run from those who pretend to have found it."

"Anger is a wind which blows out the lamp of the mind."

"Understanding the right answer to the wrong question is not progress."

"A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought."

"The mind is like a candle: it cannot light itself."

"The greatest evils come not from external enemies but from within ourselves."

"You are not upset because of the things themselves, but because of your judgments about them."

"You will always be frustrated if your idea of reality is wrong."

"Practice yourself from the start to say to every rough impression, 'You are an impression and not at all the thing you appear to be.'"

"You came into the world as a naked and helpless child, but you brought with you the capacity for virtue."

"The sign of a wise man is to begin in himself and gradually extend outward."

"What enslaves you is not things themselves, but your judgments about them."

"The good is not in possession; the good is in the using."

"Just as a person in a carriage cares not whether the road is smooth or rocky, the wise man cares not about what befalls him."

"The first principle of philosophy is this: know yourself."

"If you truly understood the nature of things, you would cease to demand anything other than what you receive."

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms."

"If you are overcome by anything, remember that it is something outside your control."

"The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and bad."

"That which is in your power is entirely in your power; that which is not in your power is truly not your concern."

"A man should not stand up to speak unless he has something to say."

"To recover from error is the prerogative of the wise."

"The superior man thinks always of virtue, the common man thinks of comfort."

"To know what you know and know what you do not know, that is true knowledge."

"The superior man seeks within himself; the mean man seeks within others."

"From the errors of others, a wise man corrects his own."

"Knowledge must be paired with virtue to be true knowledge."

"When the heart is right, the mind will follow."

"Silence is sometimes an argument of consent."

"The mind that is wise will not go to places where it might tempt fate."