Wisdom refers to a quality of character or mind. Wisdom is being able to apply knowledge, theory, and experience with insight and good judgment. Wisdom, a deep knowledge of what is right, can be about truth or goodness. Wisdom can also refer to the body of knowledge and experience passed on from previous generations within a culture, or across cultures, that equips one to make wise choices and live a good life.
I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.
The fear of God is not the beginning of wisdom. The fear of God is the death of wisdom. Skepticism and doubt lead to study and investigation, and investigation is the beginning of wisdom.
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.
In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.
A wise man proportions his beliefs to the evidence.
Wisdom is knowing what to do next; Skill is knowing how to do it, and Virtue is doing it.
We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and trasmit data — the lowest cognitive form — has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.
To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depth of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom.
It is no longer enough to be smart — all the technological tools in the world add meaning and value only if they enhance our core values, the deepest part of our heart. Acquiring knowledge is no guarantee of practical, useful application. Wisdom implies a mature integration of appropriate knowledge, a seasoned ability to filter the inessential from the essential.
Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk.
Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.
To know when to be generous and when firm — that is wisdom.
The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
It takes a clever man to turn cynic and a wise man to be clever enough not to.
A prudent question is one half of wisdom.
What replaces fear? A capacity to trust the abundance of life. All wisdom traditions posit the profound truth that there are two fundamental ways to live life: from fear and scarcity or from trust and abundance…. We come to believe that even if something unexpected happens or if we make mistakes, things will turn out all right, and when they don’t, life will have given us an opportunity to learn and grow.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.
Mystical explanations are thought to be deep; the truth is that they are not even shallow.
War has always been the grand sagacity of every spirit which has grown too inward and too profound; its curative power lies even in the wounds one receives.
Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
To be clever enough to get all that money, one must be stupid enough to want it.
One’s first step in wisdom is to question everything – and one’s last is to come to terms with everything.
No question is so difficult to answer as that to which the answer is obvious.
We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.
Too bad that all the people who really know how to run the country are busy driving taxi cabs and cutting hair.
If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.
The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.
The hunger for facile wisdom is the root of all false philosophy.
Wisdom, fundamentally, is knowing who you are, where you are, and what you’re trying to do or be.
A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five.
The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.
Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak and to speak well are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
