True Wisdom Quotes

God's wisdom, true wisdom, is essential to living the life we were designed to live. Apart from God and his wisdom, we can spend a lot of time and energy getting lost, or worse, asking for directions from people who only pretend to know the way. ~ Margaret Feinberg

We fight not so that the world will remember us, but so that there will be a world to remember. ~ Captain John Price

True wisdom is seeing what is beneficial to your eternal life, and managing your life according to that. You do this when you not only know these things and grasp them with your understanding, but also will and do them. ~ Emanuel Swedenborg

For no wisdom is true wisdom if it does not direct all its prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice towards that final state where God shall be all in all in an assured eternity and perfect peace. ~ Augustine Of Hippo

Never be proud but show humility towards others, true wisdom lies in being humble. ~ Radhe Maa

True wisdom
is not borrowed knowledge
it must be based
on my own experience.

That which I learn from others
is memory, not wisdom ~ Beopjeong

10 Fear of the LORD is the foundation of true wisdom. All who obey his commandments will grow in wisdom. Praise him forever! ~ Anonymous

Christ is the true light of the world; it is through him alone that true wisdom is imparted to the mind. ~ Jonathan Edwards

True wisdom is to see and understand your relationship with the universe. When you gain that relational knowledge, then you are wise. ~ Frederick Lenz

If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks. What you have discovered is a recipe not for memory, but for reminder. And it is no true wisdom that you offer your disciples, but only its semblance, for by telling them of many things without teaching them you will make them seem to know much, while for the most part they know nothing, and as men filled, not with wisdom, but with the conceit of wisdom, they will be a burden to their fellows. ~ Plato

It was not curiosity that killed the goose who laid the golden egg, but an insatiable greed that devoured common sense. ~ E.A. Bucchianeri

true wisdom always leads us to please God. ~ Anthony DeStefano

True wisdom is plenty of experience, observation, and reflection. False wisdom is plenty of ignorance, arrogance, and impudence. ~ Josh Billings

Lord Krishna ... proclaims Self-realization, true wisdom, as the highest branch of all human knowledge-the king of all sciences, the very essence of dharma ("religion")-for it alone permanently uproots the cause of man's threefold suffering and reveals to him his true nature of Bliss. Self-realization is yoga or "oneness" with truth-the direct perception or experience of truth by the all-knowing intuitive faculty of the soul. ~ Paramahansa Yogananda

It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible. ~ Bertrand Russell

The most evident token and apparent sign of true wisdom is a constant and unconstrained rejoicing. ~ Michel De Montaigne

Better guide the young than reclaim them when old For the voice of true wisdom is calling "To rescue the fallen is good, but tis best To prevent other people from falling" Better close up the source of temptation and crime Than deliver from dungeon or gallery Better put a strong fence round the top of the cliff Than an ambulance down in the valley. ~ Joseph Malins

Sometimes it's the smallest secrets that hold the most hope, the most fun, the most danger. ~ Suzanne Palmieri

Often, we will stay in a miserable status quo until the misery finally exceeds the resistance to change. True wisdom is seeing the future: what will happen if change does not happen? ~ David W. Earle

He who knows himself is wise; yet have we no sooner acquired real consciousness of our being than we learn that true wisdom is a thing that lies far deeper than consciousness. The chief gain of increased consciousness is that it unveils an ever-loftier unconsciousness, on whose heights do the sources lie of the purest wisdom. ~ Maurice Maeterlinck

Self awareness is only powerful when knowledge is understood and applied, only then can it manifest into true wisdom! ~ Martin R. Lemieux

A boy will learn more true wisdom in a public school in a year than by a private education in five. It is not from masters, but from their equals, that youth learn a knowledge of the world. ~ Oliver Goldsmith

In Systems Thinking, the true wisdom often comes from a willingness to let go of past learning. ~ Pearl Zhu

True wisdom is hidden in the fear of the Lord. ~ Sunday Adelaja

Kindness is true wisdom - not cleverness. ~ Debasish Mridha

True wisdom, indeed, springs from the wide brain which is fed from the deep heart; and it is only when age warms its withering conceptions at the memory of its youthful fire, when it makes experience serve aspiration, and knowledge illumine the difficult paths through which thoughts thread their way into facts,
it is only then that age becomes broadly and nobly wise. ~ Edwin Percy Whipple

They say that wisdom comes from suffering. This is not true. Wisdom comes from having unconditional empathy for all mankind. Any man filled with empathy is capable of gaining valuable insights on the human condition through the suffering of others. You do not need to suffer to know suffering, but you need empathy first to identify and feel the suffering of others around you. If you do not feel love for all mankind, nor see everyone around you as a valuable human and an extension of yourself, then you will never feel real empathy. And if you do not have empathy, then you will not gain, learn and remember valuable knowledge from your experiences, or those around you, so that you one day become wise. ~ Suzy Kassem

The conventional wisdom is that people come to the United States, and immigration is so great, and they say, 'America, what a great country.' And a lot of that is true. ~ James Gray

The only true wisdom lives far from mankind, out in the great loneliness, and it can be reached only through suffering. Privation and suffering alone can open the mind of man to all that is hidden to others. ~ Igjugarjuk

True freedom comes only from true wisdom. ~ Debasish Mridha

Solving large, difficult problems may earn you a reputation for skillful negotiation, but Sun Tzu asserts that this supposed achievement is actually a form of failure, and having true wisdom means preventing difficult problems from arising in the first place. Ironically, ~ Sun Tzu

When someone studies well, has a successful career, or deals with difficulties well, people think he is a wise man. However, such successes do not mean that one is wise. True wisdom is to know with the consciousness of God. ~ Woo Myung

True wisdom lies in one's confession about the limits of one's knowledge. ~ Socrates

It may be said, almost without qualification, that true wisdom consists in the ready and accurate perception of analogies. Without the former quality, knowledge of the past is unobstructive: without the latter it is deceptive. ~ Richard Whately

To be strong enough to know when you are weak, brave enough to face yourself when you are afraid.

Not to seek the path of comfort, but to face the stress and spur of the difficulty and challenge.

Not to substitute words for actions.

To be proud and unbending in honest failure but humble and gentle in success.

To seek out and experience a vigor of the emotions, a freshness of the deep springs of lift, an appetite of adventure over love of ease.

To seek a temper of the will, a quality of the imagination and to exercise a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity.

To be modest so that you will appreciate the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.

To be serious, yet never to take yourself too seriously; to cry, but also to laugh.

To discover the sense of wonder, the unfailing hope of what is next, and the joy and inspiration of life. ~ Mark Weber

True wisdom knows it must comprise some nonsense as a compromise, lest fools should fail to find it wise. ~ Piet Pieterszoon Hein

Ultimately, this cosmologem is not just a piece of funerary geography, but conveys basic truths about the nature of human existence. It relates that the dead have no need for their memories, having passed beyond the realm in which those memories have value. But the memories of the departed are not without value for those who are yet living. The accumulated memories of the dead comprise the totality of human history. Preserved and appreciated, they are the source of true wisdom, the wisdom that is based on the full sweep of human experiences rather than the idiosyncratic events of one human life. In the last analysis, the present depends upon the past, the living upon the dead, and this world upon the other. Those who die do not just pass on but continue to contribute to the sustenance of this world, as the world of the living draws strength, meaning, and wisdom from the world of the dead, much as one draws water from a spring. ~ Bruce Lincoln

He who practices Tasawwuf without learning Sacred Law corrupts his faith, while he who learns Sacred Law without practicing Tasawwuf corrupts himself.
Only he who combines the two proves true. ~ Malik Ibn Anas

The only true wisdom is in knowing that with love you can win the world. ~ Debasish Mridha

It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.
What matters most are the simple pleasures so abundant that we can all enjoy them ... Happiness doesn't lie in the objects we gather around us. To find it, all we need to do is open our eyes. ~ Antoine De Saint Exupery

True wisdom for a general is vigorous determination. ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

Once the troublesome mind "begins to compose speeches and dream up arguments, especially if these are clever, it will soon imagine it is doing important work." But if you can surpass those thoughts, Teresa explained, and ascend toward God, "it is a glorious bewilderment, a heavenly madness, in which true wisdom is acquired. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

All true wisdom is found on T-shirts. ~ Abraham Lincoln

True wisdom, laboring to expound, heareth others readily;
False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument. ~ Martin Farquhar Tupper

We can only achieve true wisdom when our soul is liberated from our bodies by death. ~ Arianna Huffington

The gospel of Jesus points us and indeed urges us to be at the leading edge of the whole culture, articulating in story and music and art and philosophy and education and poetry and politics and theology and even, heaven help us, biblical studies, a worldview that will mount the historically rooted Christian challenge to both modernity and postmodernity, leading the way into the postmodern world with joy and humor and gentleness and good judgment and true wisdom. ~ N. T. Wright

True wisdom, as the fruit of self-examination, dialogue, and generous encounter between persons, is not acquired by a mere accumulation of data which eventually leads to overload and confusion, a sort of mental pollution. Real relationships with others, with all the challenges they entail, now tend to be replaced by a type of internet communication which enables us to choose or eliminate relationships at whim, thus giving rise to a new type of contrived emotion which has more to do with devices and displays than with other people and with nature. ~ Pope Francis

Knowledge is strength, but true wisdom is power. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

True honor does not crave recognition, as true wisdom craves not publicity. The great heroes and the great men of wisdom walk silently through the bypaths of mankind. ~ Dagobert D. Runes

Sirri al-Saqati, who died in 867 of the Christian Era, said:
'True wisdom is: non-attachment to self and devotion to Truth. ~ Idries Shah

THE ULTIMATE GOAL
True service is that in which the one who renders service, dissolves. True Wisdom is that in which the one who has wisdom surrenders. True Devotion is the state of being in which the devotee disappears. True Meditation is that in which the one who meditates is lost. ~ Sirshree

True wisdom is gentle and relevant. It comes to us when we are ready to hear it through a conduit we perceive as safe and loving. ~ Danielle Boonstra

To theology, ... only what it holds sacred is true, whereas to philosophy, only what holds true is sacred. ~ Ludwig Feuerbach

Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirth-fulness. If you would know aught, be gay before it. ~ Henry David Thoreau

The process of having fruitful crops depends on being crushed under the soil, becoming soil, and being no one; only then a second existence becomes possible. So whatever status one has in society, true wisdom requires one to see oneself this way. Individuals with such considerations are already prepared for self-effacement and will therefore not lose in the face of even the hardest tests by God's grace. Such people do not feel dizzy before victories, and do not give up in the face of pressures, attacks, and insults, because a man who sees himself as a seed under the soil does not mind others walking on him. ~ M. Fethullah Gulen

Why is wisdom so fair? Why is beauty so wise?
Because all else is temporary, while beauty and wisdom are the only real and constant aspects of truth that can be perceived by human means.
And I don't mean the kind of surface beauty that fades with age, or the sort of shallow wisdom that gets lost in platitudes.
True beauty grips your gut and squeezes your lungs, and makes you see with utmost clarity exactly what is before you.
True wisdom then steps in, to interpret, illuminate, and form a life-altering insight. ~ Vera Nazarian

Make me the father, O Lord, who will show my sons enough of a sense of humor, so that they will always be serious, but never take themselves too seriously. Give them humility, so they will always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength. ~ Thom S. Rainer

True perfection seems imperfect,
yet it is perfectly itself.
True fullness seems empty,
yet it is fully present.
True straightness seems crooked.
True wisdom seems foolish.
True art seems artless. ~ Lao-Tzu

Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power. ~ Lao-Tzu

Among those dazzled by the Administration team was Vice-President Lyndon Johnson. After attending his first Cabinet meeting he went back to his mentor Sam Rayburn and told him with great enthusiasm how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next, and that the smartest of them all was that fellow with the Stacomb on his hair from the Ford Motor Company, McNamara. "Well, Lyndon," Mister Sam answered, "you may be right and they may be every bit as intelligent as you say, but I'd feel a whole lot better about them if just one of them had run for sheriff once." It is my favorite story in the book, for it underlines the weakness of the Kennedy team, the difference between intelligence and wisdom, between the abstract quickness and verbal fluency which the team exuded, and the true wisdom, which is the product of hard-won, often bitter experience. Wisdom for a few of them came after Vietnam. ~ David Halberstam

True wisdom consists in respecting the simple things we do ~ Paulo Coelho

Such is true joy's absolute certainty,
Its slow lit fuse that burns holes
In the shabby shroud of death forever. ~ Scott Hastie

When we allow ourselves to feel what we are feeling-without trying to understand it, explain it, or judge it-we reach a point where the true wisdom reveals itself. ~ Michael Eisen

Only those who row the boat make waves ~ Christina Dodd

It seems to me a proof of the small advance our race has made in true wisdom, that we find it so hard to give up doing anything we have meant to do. ~ William Dean Howells

Knowledge is silver, but true wisdom is gold. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

You know what is right. Deep down, you know. The battle between your true wisdom and the counterfeit wisdom of society is what causes frustration. Refuse to compromise with what you know is right-with what is right for you. ~ Vernon Howard

True wisdom is to know the extent of what you don't know quite as well as you know what you do know. ~ Gore Vidal

Guru Arjun tells us that the truth we seek is within ourselves, and I agree. The answers to many of our greatest desires, needs, and longings are inside. We only need to know how to retrieve them. The most powerful vehicle for retrieving our longed for answers is applied intelligence, which is the combination of information and experience. Applied intelligence brings true wisdom because it includes experience, usually on a deep level. ~ Dharma Singh Khalsa

All true wisdom is only to be found far from the dwellings of men, in the great solitudes; and it can only be obtained through suffering. Suffering and privation are the only things that can open the mind of man to that which is hidden from his fellows.' That ~ Doug Scott

But 'true wisdom is such that no evil use can ever be made of it.' That is worth our pondering because we, more than any previous generation, are witnessing the evil effects of perverted knowledge, knowledge not essentially connected to goodness. ... No other generation has been so successful at using its technological knowledge in order to manipulate the world and satisfy its own appetites. (pg. 96) ~ Ellen F. Davis

Humility is the only true wisdom by which we prepare our minds for all the possible changes of life. ~ George Arliss

I hear Your voice inside me, calling me home. Who will believe in me?

Those who know My voice.

I am not channeling. The word of God is upon my heart.

You have all you need. Stop looking to another. My Word is written within you. Ask and you shall receive. No Voice speaks clearer. Surrender to Me. Do not think what is next. It shall be shown for what it is. Listen to Me. Lest you forget, true wisdom comes only from Source.

Don't be afraid to be alone with yourself. I am here. Listen to Me as I speak clearly your name. Must you always seek to drown Me out? I am here. Hear Me now. I give you rest. Rest in Me, not in what you think. You are more than that. Oh, so much more you are. Listen to Me, listen up My dear. Hear Me clear. My words ring true like a bell. Yes, clear as a bell I speak unto you. Give Me room. Move over. Get out of your way, I say. I speak peace and love unto your heart. ~ Debra Clemente

To know that one knows what one knows, and to know that one doesn't know what one doesn't know, there lies true wisdom. ~ Confucius

True wisdom is the skill and practice of death. ~ C.S. Lewis

True wisdom is knowing what you don't know ~ Confucius

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

There is nothing so unsure as the plans we make that rely on the sensible behavior of another human being. ~ Steven Saylor

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us. ~ Socrates

But now, well, he keeps telling me that solitude is the foundation of true wisdom, that all the brilliant thoughts in this house come as the desperate cry of one human being to another, saying, Know me, live with me in the world of my mind. ~ Orson Scott Card

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

True wisdom dwells in the ability to remain constantly aware of that in which we have no practical knowledge of ~ Carl Henegan

Why should we desire the destruction of human passions? Take passions from human beings and what is left? The great object should be not to destroy passions, but to make them obedient to the intellect. To indulge passion to the utmost is one form of intemperance - to destroy passion is another. The reasonable gratification of passion under the domination of the intellect is true wisdom and perfect virtue. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

Acquiring true wisdom is always a greater burden than transient pain. ~ Bill Willingham

True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self. ~ John Calvin

The true wisdom of the philosopher ought to insist in enjoying everything. Yet we apply ourselves to dissecting and destroying everything that is good in itself, that has virtue, albeit the virtue there is in mere illusions. Nature gives us this life like a toy to a weak child. We want to see how it all works; we break everything. There remains in our hands, and before our eyes, stupid and opened too late, the sterile wreckage, fragments that will not again make a whole. The good is so simple. ~ Eugene Delacroix

It is not our right to punish one for thinking as he does, no matter how much we disagree. ~ Oliver Bowden

... A MAN WHO HAS GIVEN HIS HEART TO LEARNING AND TRUE WISDOM AND EXERCISED THAT PART OF HIMSELF IS SURELY BOUND, IF HE ATTAINS TO TRUTH, TO HAVE IMMORTAL AND DIVINE THOUGHTS, AND CANNOT FAIL TO ACHIEVE IMMORTALITY AS FULL AS IS PERMITTED TO HUMAN NATURE; AND BECAUSE HE HAS ALWAYS LOOKED AFTER THE DIVINE ELEMENT IN HIMSELF AND KEPT HIS GUARDIAN SPIRIT IN GOOD ORDER HE MUST BE HAPPY ABOVE ALL MEN ~ Plato

A philosopher is a lover of wisdom, not of knowledge, which for all its great uses ultimately suffers from the crippling effect of ephemerality. All knowledge is transient linked to the world around it and subject to change as the world changes, whereas wisdom, true wisdom is eternal immutable. To be philosophical one must love wisdom for its own sake, accept its permanent validity and yet its perpetual irrelevance. It is the fate of the wise to understand the process of history and yet never to shape it. ~ Shashi Tharoor

True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment, and that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Our true wisdom is to embrace with meek docility, and without reservation, whatever the holy scriptures have delivered. ~ John Calvin

Knowledge is hidden in books, understanding is hidden in hearts, but true wisdom is hidden in souls. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Set a challenge for yourself and challenge yourself to set a challenge for others to challenge themselves. True strength, true wisdom, true tenacity and true courage is best seen when it is in motion! Take action! ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

True wisdom, which is not certain of anything in this world of contradictions, would have prevented him from attaining his present position. It would have alarmed his superiors, and done away with his chances of promotion. ~ Joseph Conrad

True wisdom is like an ocean; the deeper you go the greater the treasures you'll find. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

William the Testy. On the contrary, he conceived that the true wisdom of legislation consisted in the multiplicity of laws. He accordingly had great punishments for great crimes, and little punishments for little offences. By degrees the whole surface of society was cut up by ditches and fences, and quickset hedges of the law, and even the sequestered paths of private life so beset by petty rules and ordinances, too numerous to be remembered, that one could scarce walk at large without the risk of letting off a spring-gun or falling into a man-trap. In a little while the blessings of innumerable laws became apparent; a class of men arose to expound and confound them. Petty courts were instituted to take cognizance of petty offences, pettifoggers began to abound, and the community was soon set together by the ears. ~ Washington Irving

True wisdom comes from the overcoming of suffering and sin. All true wisdom is therefore touched with sadness. ~ Whittaker Chambers

Consider this point. It is a main point of true wisdom. Whenever there is an execution of purpose, there must be an agent. ~ Adoniram Judson

No power of earth, or hell, men or devils, can possibly stand against the word of God; and hence it is the very height of folly and wild madness for any one to set up his thoughts or reasonings in opposition to the plain statements of Holy Scripture; and, on the other hand, it is the beginning and end of all true wisdom to submit in all things to the absolute authority of that Word which is settled forever in Heaven. ~ Charles Henry Mackintosh

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge. ~ Socrates