Wisdom Quotes
118 hand-picked lines on wisdom
“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.”
— Dalai Lama →
“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.”
— Albert Einstein →
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
— Benjamin Franklin →
“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”
— Oscar Wilde →
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe.”
— Albert Einstein →
“What we think, we become.”
— Buddha →
“An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“Be the change that you wish to see in the world.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
— Lao Tzu →
“If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.”
— Mark Twain →
“The mind is everything. What you think you become.”
— Buddha →
“Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else.”
— Margaret Mead →
“If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more.”
— Oprah Winfrey →
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
— Dalai Lama →
“A thousand words will not leave so deep an impression as one deed.”
— Henrik Ibsen →
“Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.”
— Seneca →
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”
— Plutarch →
“Change your thoughts and you change your world.”
— Norman Vincent Peale →
“You become what you believe.”
— Oprah Winfrey →
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt →
“It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.”
— Henry David Thoreau →
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
— Chinese Proverb →
“Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.”
— Confucius →
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
— Aristotle →
“The first step toward change is awareness.”
— Nathaniel Branden →
“Little things make big days.”
— Unknown →
“Sometimes we're tested not to show our weaknesses, but to discover our strengths.”
— Unknown →
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
— Oprah Winfrey →
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”
— Benjamin Spock →
“Well done is better than well said.”
— Benjamin Franklin →
“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.”
— Benjamin Franklin →
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. →
“Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle.”
— Plato →
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
— John Milton →
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
— Martin Luther King Jr. →
“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius →
“It is not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.”
— Epictetus →
“Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
— Marcus Aurelius →
“The unexamined life is not worth living.”
— Socrates →
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”
— Albert Einstein →
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
— Albert Einstein →
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
— Socrates →
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”
— Aristotle →
“The wise man does not lay up his own treasures. The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.”
— Lao Tzu →
“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”
— Lao Tzu →
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
— Abraham Lincoln →
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: first by reflection, second by imitation, and third by experience.”
— Confucius →
“The wisest mind has something yet to learn.”
— George Santayana →
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance.”
— Confucius →
“To know what you know and what you do not know — that is true knowledge.”
— Confucius →
“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
— Immanuel Kant →
“Wonder is the beginning of wisdom.”
— Socrates →
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
— William Shakespeare →
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
— William James →
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
— Rumi →
“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.”
— Albert Einstein →
“The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.”
— Socrates →
“Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”
— Lance Armstrong →
“We learn from failure, not from success.”
— Bram Stoker →
“The truth is rarely pure and never simple.”
— Oscar Wilde →
“To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle.”
— Buddha →
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien →
“The only journey is the one within.”
— Rainer Maria Rilke →
“Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“We do not learn from experience, we learn from reflecting on experience.”
— John Dewey →
“Character is what you are in the dark.”
— Dwight L. Moody →
“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.”
— Malcolm X →
“You yourself must seek the truth. The Buddha only points the way.”
— Buddha →
“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.”
— Plutarch →
“Speak only if it improves upon the silence.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you'll die of a misprint.”
— Mark Twain →
“Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions.”
— Lao Tzu →
“The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.”
— Rumi →
“Half of seeming clever is keeping your mouth shut at the right times.”
— Patrick Rothfuss →
“Wisdom begins in wonder.”
— Socrates →
“The greatest wealth is to live content with little.”
— Plato →
“At the end of the day, let there be no excuses, no explanations, no regrets.”
— Steve Maraboli →
“The whole secret of existence is to have no fear.”
— Buddha →
“A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.”
— Francis Bacon →
“Life must be understood backward. But it must be lived forward.”
— Søren Kierkegaard →
“The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh →
“The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance — it is the illusion of knowledge.”
— Daniel J. Boorstin →
“You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”
— Steve Jobs →
“Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
— Buddha →
“Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
— Albert Einstein →
“When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”
— Buddha →
“A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.”
— Nelson Mandela →
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Wishing is not enough; we must do.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe →
“The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom.”
— William Blake →
“A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
— Plato →
“Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.”
— Albert Einstein →
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“Intelligence without ambition is a bird without wings.”
— Salvador Dalí →
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
— Ernest Hemingway →
“Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
— Anne Lamott →
“Never let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.”
— Dalai Lama →
“As soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe →
“Become who you are.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche →
“What you allow is what will continue.”
— Unknown →
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
— Edmund Burke →
“To be great is to be misunderstood.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson →
“Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.”
— Sigmund Freud →
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths.”
— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross →
“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”
— Dalai Lama →
“If you light a lamp for somebody, it will also brighten your path.”
— Buddha →
“Courage is the most important of all the virtues because without courage, you can't practice any other virtue consistently.”
— Maya Angelou →
“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”
— Oscar Wilde →
“Do the difficult things while they are easy and do the great things while they are small.”
— Lao Tzu →
“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.”
— Lao Tzu →
“Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.”
— Lao Tzu →
“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won.”
— Mahatma Gandhi →
“Accept what is, let go of what was, and have faith in what will be.”
— Sonia Ricotti →
“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.”
— Henry David Thoreau →
“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
— Francis Bacon →
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”
— Søren Kierkegaard →
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche →