Quotes Temple Wisdom Quotes

The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

Peter Abelard
French Philosopher

Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.

Abigail Adams
American First Lady

In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration.

Ansel Adams
American Photographer

Never let a fool kiss you, or a kiss fool you.

Joey Adams
American Comedian

Animals, in their generation, are wiser than the sons of men; but their wisdom is confined to a few particulars, and lies in a very narrow compass.

Joseph Addison
English Writer

He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.

Aeschylus
Greek Poet

Better be wise by the misfortunes of others than by your own.

Aesop
Greek Author

To be satisfied with a little, is the greatest wisdom; and he that increaseth his riches, increaseth his cares; but a contented mind is a hidden treasure, and trouble findeth it not.

Akhenaton
Egyptian Statesman

True wisdom is less presuming than folly. The wise man doubteth often, and changeth his mind; the fool is obstinate, and doubteth not; he knoweth all things but his own ignorance.

Akhenaton
Egyptian Statesman

Doubt the conventional wisdom unless you can verify it with reason and experiment.

Steve Albini
American Musician

The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good. Calmness of mind is one of the beautiful jewels of wisdom.

James Allen
British Author

This land, which we have watered with our tears and our blood, is now our mother country, and we are well satisfied to stay where wisdom abounds and gospel is free.

Richard V. Allen
American Public Servant

We learned in World War II that no single nation holds a monopoly on wisdom, morality or right to power, but that we must fight for the weak and promote democracy.

Joe Baca
American Politician

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.

Francis Bacon
English Philosopher

Kindness is wisdom.

Philip James Bailey
English Poet

I'd rather regret the things I've done than regret the things I haven't done.

Lucille Ball
American Comedian

In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.

Lucille Ball
American Comedian

I gave my beauty and my youth to men. I am going to give my wisdom and experience to animals.

Brigitte Bardot
French Actress

I am thinking of taking a fifth wife. Why not? Solomon had a thousand wives and he is a synonym for wisdom.

John Barrymore
American Actor

I'm not a money manager, but I can tell you what the conventional wisdom is. The younger you are, the more risk you can take on.

Maria Bartiromo
American Journalist

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

Herb Caen
American Journalist

For all my education, accomplishments, and so called 'wisdom'... I can't fathom my own heart.

Michael Caine
English Actor

Instead of looking at life as a narrowing funnel, we can see it ever widening to choose the things we want to do, to take the wisdom we've learned and create something.

Liz Carpenter
American Writer

As far as feeling freedom in my career now versus five years ago... I think if I feel any more free it's simply because of the experiences that I've had, and the wisdom I've accumulated from that time.

Mary Chapin Carpenter
American Musician

Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

Jimmy Carter
American President

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.

Julian Casablancas
American Musician

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotation.

Isaac D'Israeli
British Writer

You can't sweep other people off their feet, if you can't be swept off your own.

Clarence Day
American Author

This age thinks better of a gilded fool Than of a threadbare saint in wisdom's school.

Thomas Dekker
English Dramatist

Lord, bless me with the ability to achieve all that I can, and the wisdom to realize it doesn't all have to be by tomorrow!

William Eardley IV
American Public Servant

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Poet

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Poet

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

Paul Engle
American Poet

He whose wisdom cannot help him, gets no good from being wise.

Quintus Ennius
Roman Poet

It is the nature of the wise to resist pleasures, but the foolish to be a slave to them.

Epictetus
Greek Philosopher

Of all the things which wisdom provides to make us entirely happy, much the greatest is the possession of friendship.

Epicurus
Greek Philosopher

It is wisdom in prosperity, when all is as thou wouldn't have it, to fear and suspect the worst.

Desiderius Erasmus
Philosopher

Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.

Euripides
Greek Poet

Cleverness is not wisdom.

Euripides
Greek Poet

The end of wisdom is to dream high enough to lose the dream in the seeking of it.

William Faulkner
American Novelist

He who lives by the crystal ball soon learns to eat ground glass.

Edgar R. Fiedler
Economist

Wisdom sails with wind and time.

John Florio
English Writer

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Solomon Ibn Gabirol
Spanish Poet

One of the greatest pieces of economic wisdom is to know what you do not know.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.

John Kenneth Galbraith
American Economist

A wholesome oblivion of one's neighbours is the beginning of wisdom.

Richard Le Gallienne
English Poet

The greater the step forward in knowledge, the greater is the one taken backward in search of wisdom.

Stephen Gardiner
British Architect

All free governments are managed by the combined wisdom and folly of the people.

James A. Garfield
American President

You have to find out what's right for you, so it's trial and error. You are going to be all right if you accept realistic goals for yourself.

Teri Garr
American Actress

Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.

Elizabeth Gaskell
British Novelist

It is much more difficult to measure nonperformance than performance.

Harold S. Geneen
British Businessman

Writing is no dying art form in America because most published writers here accept the wisdom and the necessity of encouraging the talent that follows in their footsteps.

Elizabeth George
American Author

Age does not bring you wisdom, age brings you wrinkles.

Estelle Getty
American Actress

A little knowledge that acts is worth infinitely more than much knowledge that is idle.

Khalil Gibran
Poet

Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.

Khalil Gibran
Poet

The future has already arrived. It's just not evenly distributed yet.

William Gibson
American Writer

We are to seek wisdom and understanding only in the length of days.

Robert Hall
English Clergyman

I continue to believe, contrary to the given wisdom, that it's more interesting to have an album - or, indeed, an individual song - which has variety rather than homogeneity.

Peter Hammill
English Musician

However, I must not indulge in homespun wisdom here before so distinguished an assembly, especially as I am to be followed by a representative of science.

Knut Hamsun
Norwegian Author

The thing that we possess, that machines don't, is the ability to exhibit wisdom.

Herbie Hancock
American Musician

Without wisdom, the future has no meaning, no valuable purpose.

Herbie Hancock
American Musician

You can practice to attain knowledge, but you can't practice to attain wisdom.

Herbie Hancock
American Musician

Books give not wisdom where none was before. But where some is, there reading makes it more.

Elizabeth Hardwick
American Critic

The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.

Dean Inge
English Author

It is astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.

William Ralph Inge
English Clergyman

To comprehend the Wisdom of this Injunction the better, and explain the Duty before us, it should be considered, that Government is the only Means by which human Happiness can be attained.

Charles Inglis
Canadian Clergyman

Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is imortal.

Isocrates
Greek Writer

In complete darkness we are all the same, it is only our knowledge and wisdom that separates us, don't let your eyes deceive you.

Janet Jackson
American Musician

Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart.

Phil Jackson
American Coach

Wisdom is always an overmatch for strength.

Phil Jackson
American Coach

In garden arrangement, as in all other kinds of decorative work, one has not only to acquire a knowledge of what to do, but also to gain some wisdom in perceiving what it is well to let alone.

Gertrude Jekyll
British Celebrity

I've always shied away from conventional wisdom, though I know the power of it.

Peter Jennings
Canadian Journalist

But the law of God came from heaven indeed. God wrote it with his finger, it is the fountain of all wisdom, and therefore shall it continue for ever, and never have an end.

John Jewel
English Clergyman

To keep your secret is wisdom; to expect others to keep it is folly.

William Samuel Johnson
American Politician

I've led a school whose faculty and students examine and discuss and debate every aspect of our law and legal system. And what I've learned most is that no one has a monopoly on truth or wisdom. I've learned that we make progress by listening to each other, across every apparent political or ideological divide.

Elena Kagan
American Judge

Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.

Immanuel Kant
German Philosopher

Perspective is worth 80 IQ points.

Alan Kay
American Scientist

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.

Alan Kay
American Scientist

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.

John Keats
English Poet

I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.

John F. Kennedy
American President

Tragedy is a tool for the living to gain wisdom, not a guide by which to live.

Robert Kennedy
American Politician

It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life.

Elizabeth Kenny
Australian Celebrity

The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.

Lactantius
Author

Where fear is present, wisdom cannot be.

Lactantius
Author

If you want to be found stand where the seeker seeks.

Sidney Lanier
American Poet

Virtues are acquired through endeavor, which rests wholly upon yourself.

Sidney Lanier
American Poet

Wisdom is the quality that keeps you from getting into situations where you need it.

Doug Larson
American Cartoonist

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk.

Doug Larson
American Cartoonist

This, and this alone, is Christianity, a universal holiness in every part of life, a heavenly wisdom in all our actions, not conforming to the spirit and temper of the world but turning all worldly enjoyments into means of piety and devotion to God.

William Law
English Clergyman

The war... was an unnecessary condition of affairs, and might have been avoided if forebearance and wisdom had been practiced on both sides.

Robert E. Lee
American Soldier

We must expect reverses, even defeats. They are sent to teach us wisdom and prudence, to call forth greater energies, and to prevent our falling into greater disasters.

Robert E. Lee
American Soldier

Few of the many wise apothegms which have been uttered have prevented a single foolish action.

Thomas B. Macaulay
English Historian

The more I work with the body, keeping my assumptions in a temporary state of reservation, the more I appreciate and sympathize with a given disease. The body no longer appears as a sick or irrational demon, but as a process with its own inner logic and wisdom.

George MacDonald
Scottish Novelist

Conventional wisdom notwithstanding, there is no reason either in football or in poetry why the two should not meet in a man's life if he has the weight and cares about the words.

Archibald MacLeish
American Poet

Every nation whose affairs betray a want of wisdom and stability may calculate on every loss which can be sustained from the more systematic policy of its wiser neighbors.

James Madison
American President

It is not from reason that justice springs, but goodness is born of wisdom.

Maurice Maeterlinck
Belgian Dramatist

A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.

Nelson Mandela
South African Statesman

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.

Nelson Mandela
South African Statesman

Contemplation and wisdom are highest achievements and man is not totally at home with them.

Gabriel Marcel
French Philosopher

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.

Holly Near
American Musician

Words of wisdom are spoken by children at least as often as scientists.

James Newman
American Astronaut

A great memory is never made synonymous with wisdom, any more than a dictionary would be called a treatise.

John Henry Newman
British Clergyman

It may be assumed as an axiom that Providence has never gifted any political party with all of political wisdom or blinded it with all of political folly.

John George Nicolay
American Writer

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Reinhold Niebuhr
American Theologian

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

Reinhold Niebuhr
American Theologian

The final wisdom of life requires not the annulment of incongruity but the achievement of serenity within and above it.

Reinhold Niebuhr
American Theologian

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?

Friedrich Nietzsche
German Philosopher

Logic is the beginning of wisdom, not the end.

Leonard Nimoy
American Actor

My past is my wisdom to use today... my future is my wisdom yet to experience. Be in the present because that is where life resides.

Gene Oliver
American Athlete

Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it's filled with wisdom. Sometimes it's filled with feet.

Robert Orben
American Entertainer

But the Wisdom of God, which is His only-begotten Son, being in all respects incapable of change or alteration, and every good quality in Him being essential, and such as cannot be changed and converted, His glory is therefore declared to be pure and sincere.

Origen
Theologian

The philosophies of one age have become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.

William Osler
Canadian Scientist

Wisdom, prudence, forethought, these are essential. But not second to these that noble courage which adventures the right, and leaves the consequences to God.

Robert Dale Owen
Scottish Politician

Putting is like wisdom - partly a natural gift and partly the accumulation of experience.

Arnold Palmer
American Athlete

Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art.

Charlie Parker
American Musician

One of the most beautiful passages of Rousseau is that in the sixth book of Confessions, where he describes the awakening in him of the literary sense. Of such wisdom, the poetic passion, the desire of beauty, the love of art for its own sake, has most.

Walter Pater
English Critic

Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.

Alan Paton
South African Novelist

Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.

John Patrick
American Playwright

Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity.

George S. Patton
American Soldier

Strong characters are brought out by change of situation, and gentle ones by permanence.

Jean Paul
German Author

The more sand that has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.

Jean Paul
German Author

Wisdom lies neither in fixity nor in change, but in the dialectic between the two.

Octavio Paz
Mexican Poet

Discipline is wisdom and vice versa.

M. Scott Peck
American Psychologist

He who is taught to live upon little owes more to his father's wisdom than he who has a great deal left him does to his father's care.

William Penn
English Leader

Rarely promise, but, if lawful, constantly perform.

William Penn
English Leader

Has fortune dealt you some bad cards. Then let wisdom make you a good gamester.

Francis Quarles
English Poet

Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Francis Quarles
English Poet

People always blame the girl; she should have said no. A monosyllable, but conventional wisdom has always been that boys can't manage it.

Anna Quindlen
American Journalist

Don't taunt the alligator until after you've crossed the creek.

Dan Rather
American Journalist

And, if we have any evidence that the wisdom which formed the plan is in the man, we have the very same evidence, that the power which executed it is in him also.

Thomas Reid
Scottish Philosopher

Every indication of wisdom, taken from the effect, is equally an indication of power to execute what wisdom planned.

Thomas Reid
Scottish Philosopher

Whenever you argue with another wiser than yourself in order that others may admire your wisdom, they will discover your ignorance.

Saadi
Iranian Poet

If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe.

Lord Salisbury
English Politician

Back of every mistaken venture and defeat is the laughter of wisdom, if you listen.

Carl Sandburg
American Poet

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

George Santayana
American Philosopher

It is now conventional wisdom that Americans do not care why we went to war in Iraq, that it is enough that the world is better off without Saddam Hussein.

Adam Schiff
American Politician

Full of wisdom are the ordinations of fate.

Friedrich Schiller
German Dramatist

Yale is a crucible in American life for the accommodation of intellectual achievement, of wisdom, of refinement, with the democratic ideals of openness, of social justice and of equal opportunity.

Benno C. Schmidt, Jr.
American Educator

Spectacular achievement is always preceded by unspectacular preparation.

Robert H. Schuller
American Clergyman

Gray hairs are signs of wisdom if you hold your tongue, speak and they are but hairs, as in the young.

Rabindranath Tagore
Indian Poet

I have studied many philosophers and many cats. The wisdom of cats is infinitely superior.

Hippolyte Taine
French Critic

Because in the school of the Spirit man learns wisdom through humility, knowledge by forgetting, how to speak by silence, how to live by dying.

Johannes Tauler
German Theologian

God in His wisdom has decided that He will reward no works but His own.

Johannes Tauler
German Theologian

When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth.

Sara Teasdale
American Author

Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation.

Sara Teasdale
American Author

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Alfred Lord Tennyson
English Poet

Any successful nominee should possess both the temperament to interpret the law and the wisdom to do so fairly. The next Supreme Court Justice should have a record of protecting individual rights and a strong willingness to put aside any political agenda.

Bennie Thompson
American Politician

All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.

Henry David Thoreau
American Author

True wisdom listens more, talks less and can get along with all types of people.

Kiana Tom
American Model

Lord, give us the wisdom to utter words that are gentle and tender, for tomorrow we may have to eat them.

Mo Udall
American Politician

Always keep your mind as bright and clear as the vast sky, the great ocean, and the highest peak, empty of all thoughts. Always keep your body filled with light and heat. Fill yourself with the power of wisdom and enlightenment.

Morihei Ueshiba
Japanese Athlete

Deliberately seek opportunities for kindness, sympathy, and patience.

Evelyn Underhill
English Writer

Now that I am sixty, I see why the idea of elder wisdom has passed from currency.

John Updike
American Novelist

The Founding Fathers in their wisdom decided that children were an unnatural strain on parents. So they provided jails called schools, equipped with tortures called an education.

John Updike
American Novelist

Pessimism is only the name that men of weak nerves give to wisdom.

Bernard De Voto
American Writer

A man of strength and wisdom, John Paul became an inspiration to generations of both Catholics and non-Catholics throughout the world by encouraging freedom, promoting peace and respecting all faiths.

Greg Walden
American Politician

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

William Arthur Ward
American Writer

Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.

Thomas J. Watson
American Scientist

He was gifted with the sly, sharp instinct for self-preservation that passes for wisdom among the rich.

Evelyn Waugh
English Author