Great Throughts Treasury

"A wise man never wants a weapon." - Nathan Bailey

"Fortunately wise is he who gains wisdom from another's mishap." - Hermalaus Barbarus, also Ermalao or Hermalao Barbaro

"None are too wise to be mistaken, but few are so wisely just as to acknowledge and correct their mistakes, and especially the mistakes of prejudice." - George Washington Barrow or Barrows

"The mouth of a wise man is in his heart; the heart of a fool is in his mouth." - Bible or The Bible or Holy Bible NULL

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise." - William Blake

"The ignorant man marvels at the exceptional; the wise man marvels at the common; the greatest wonder of all is the regularity of nature." - George Dana Boardman "The Younger"

"Success makes a fool seem wise." - Henry George Bohn

"Man is wise and constantly in quest of more wisdom; but the ultimate wisdom, which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls forth faith rather than reason." - Hal Borland, formally Harold Glen Borland

"A wise man neither lets himself be governed, nor seeks to govern others; he wishes that reason should govern alone and always." - Jean de La Bruyère

"If it be true that a man is rich who wants nothing, a wise man is a very rich man." - Jean de La Bruyère

"Much has been said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted." - William Cullen Bryant

"For good or ill, your conversation is your advertisement. Every time you open your mouth you let men look into your mind. Do they see it well clothed, neat, business-wise?" - Bruce Burton

"A wise man will desire no more than he may get justly, use soberly, distribute cheerfully, and leave contentedly." - Richard Francis Burton, fully Sir Richard Francis Burton

"But these are foolish things to all the wise, and I love wisdom more than she loves me; my tendency to philosophize on most things, from a tyrant to a tree; but still the spouseless virgin Knowledge flies, what are we? and whence come we? what shall be our ultimate existence? What’s our present? Are questions answerless, and yet incessant." -

"Sorrows are our best educators. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope... Grief should be the instructor of the wise: sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, the tree of knowledge that is not that of life." -

"If the government should be taught that the highest wisdom of a state is a wise and masterly inactivity, an invaluable blessing will be conferred." - John Caldwell Calhoun

"Most of the troubles of humanity are imaginary and should be laughed out of court. It is folly to cross a bridge until you come to it, or to bid the Devil good-morning until you meet him - perfect folly. All is well until the stroke falls, and even then, nine times out of ten, it is not so bad as anticipated. A wise man is the confirmed optimist." - Andrew Carnegie

"The fool inherits, but the wise must get." - William Cartwright

"The thing to do when you're impatient is to turn to your left and ask advice from your death. It is always on our left, as at arms length. An immense amount of pettiness is dropped if your death makes a gesture to you, or if you have the feeling that your companion is there watching you. How can anyone feel so important when we know that death is stalking us? Death is the only wise advise that we have. When we feel that everything is gong wrong, turn to your death and ask if that is so. Your death will tell you that you're wrong. That nothing really matters outside its touch. Ask death's advice and drop the cursed pettiness that belongs to men that live their lives as if death will never tap them... It doesn't matter what the decision is. Nothing could be more or less serious than anything else. In a world where death is the hunter there are no small or big decisions. There are only decisions we make in the face of our inevitable death." -

"There are but two classes of the wise; the men who serve God because they have found him, and the men who seek him because they have found him not." - Richard Cecil

"A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness." - Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

"'Tis the part of a wise man to keep himself for tomorrow, and not venture all his eggs in one basket." - Miguel de Cervantes, fully Miguel de Cervantes Saaversa

"The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought." - William Ellery Channing

"When you are winning a war almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise." -

"Politics is a place of humble hopes and strangely modest requirements, where all good who are not criminal and all are wise who are not ridiculously otherwise." - Frank Moore Colby

"A prudent person profits from personal experience, a wise one from the experience of others." - Joseph Collins

"Reprove the wise: your words will bring you thanks." - Saint Columbanus, aka Saint Columbanus of Bobbio NULL

"Any fool can carry on, but only the wise can shorten sail." - Joseph Conrad, born Teodor Josef Konrad Korzeniowski

"It is the easiest thing in the world for us to obey God when He command us to do what we like, and to trust Him when the path is all sunshine. The real victory of faith is to trust God in the dark, and through the dark. Let us be assured of this, that if the lesson and the rod are of His appointing, and that His all-wise love has engineered the deep tunnel of trial on the heavenward road, He will never desert us during the discipline. The vital thing for us is not to deny and desert Him." - Theodore Cuyler, fully Theodore Ledyard Cuyler

"Grand and manifold as were its phases, there is yet no difficulty in understanding the character of Washington. He was no Veiled Prophet. He never acted a part. Simple, natural, and unaffected, his life lies before us - a fair and open manuscript. He disdained the arts which wrap power in mystery in order to magnify it. He practiced the profound diplomacy of truthful speech - the consummate tact of direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest there be stirred the ghost of a buried crime." - John W. Daniel, fully John Warwick Daniel

"A wise man reflects before he speaks; a fool speaks and then reflects on what he has uttered." - Abbé Jacques Delille

"The fool who knows his foolishness is wise at least so far, but a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed." -

"The art of meditation may be exercised at all hours, and in all places; and men of genius, in their walks at table, and amidst assemblies, turning the eye of the mind inwards, can form an artificial solitude; retired amidst a crowd, calm amidst distraction, and wise amidst folly." - Isaac D'Israeli

"The wisdom of the wise and the experience of ages may be preserved by quotation." - Isaac D'Israeli

"Men who are wise are wise in time." - W. H. Dixon, fully William Henry Dixon

"How wise must one be to be always kind." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"The wise man is seldom prudent." - Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

"He that resolves upon any great and good end, has, by the very resolution, scaled the chief barrier to it. He will find such resolution removing difficulties, searching out or making means, giving courage for despondency, and strength for weakness and like the star to the wise men of old, ever guiding him nearer and nearer to perfection." - Tyron Edwards

"Before God we are all equally wise - equally foolish." - Albert Einstein

"No man can be wise on an empty stomach." - George Eliot, pen name of Mary Ann or Marian Evans

"He who is not wise for himself is not wise in anything." -

"A wise man is he who does not grieve for the thing which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has." -

"The two powers which in my opinion constitute a wise man are those of bearing and forebearing." -

"These are the signs of a wise man: to reprove nobody, to praise nobody, to blame nobody, nor event speak of himself or his own efforts." -

"The more ideas a man has the fewer words he takes to express them. Wise men never talk to make time; they talk to save it." -

"He who submits to fate without complaint is wise." - Euripedes NULL

"Necessity will teach a man, however stupid, to be wise." - Euripedes NULL

"Some wisdom must thou learn from one who's wise." - Euripedes NULL

"The wise man seeks little joys, knowing that life is long and that his quota of great joys is distinctly limited." - William Feather

"At sixteen I was stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. At twenty-five I was wise, self-confident, prepossessing and assertive. At forty-five I am stupid, confused, insecure and indecisive. Who would have supposed that maturity is only a short break in adolescence?" - Jules Feiffer, fully Jules Ralph Feiffer