"Wisdom, though richer than Peruvian mines, And sweeter than the sweet ambrosial hive, What is she, but the means of happiness? That unobtain'd, than folly more a fool."

"Be wise to-day; 'tis madness to defer; Next day the fatal precedent will plead; Thus on, till wisdom is push'd out of life."

"On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows."

"And wisdom is a butterfly And not a gloomy bird of prey."

"There is no wisdom without leisure."

"σοφίαν δὲ τὸ μέγιστον ἀγαθὸν οὐ δοκεῖ σοι ἀπείργουσα τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἡ ἀκρασία εἰς τοὐναντίον αὐτοὺς ἐμβάλλειν; ἢ οὐ δοκεῖ σοι προσέχειν τε τοῖς ὠφελοῦσι καὶ καταμανθάνειν αὐτὰ κωλύειν, ἀφέλκουσα ἐπὶ τὰ ἡδέα, καὶ πολλάκις αἰσθανομένους τῶν ἀγαθῶν τε καὶ τῶν κακῶν ἐκπλήξασα ποιεῖν τὸ χεῖρον ἀντὶ τοῦ βελτίονος αἱρεῖσθαι;"

"Wisdom is oftimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar."

"Experience is the only source of wisdom: by which I mean, the competent conduct of life."

"The wisest man is he who can account for his actions."

"It is a confusion to present the items of one sort in the idioms of another -- without awareness. For to do this is not just to cross two different sorts; it is to confuse them. It is to mistake, for example, the theory for the fact, the procedure for the process, the myth for history, the model for the thing and the metaphor for the face of literal truth."

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

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

"That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next."

"The poet's aim is either to profit or to please, or to blend in one the delightful and the useful. Whatever the lesson you would convey, be brief, that your hearers may catch quickly what is said and faithfully retain it. Every superfluous word is spilled from the too-full memory."

"Nor is he the wisest man who never proved himself a fool."

"'Tis held that sorrow makes us wise."

"Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers."

"I shall maintain that there simply is no such thing as philosophical knowledge, nor any philosophical way of knowing anything, and defend the humble point that philosophy is indeed the love of wisdom."

"It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own."

"If you listen well enough, even the emptiness will whisper wisdom."

"Those who get it obtain friendship with God."

"The beginning of wisdom is the most sincere desire for instruction."

"For those who despise wisdom and instruction are doomed. Vain is their hope, fruitless their labours, and worthless their works."

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. And the fool shall be servant to the wise in heart."

"For wisdom is better than rubies; And all the things that may be desired are not to be compared unto it."

"O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart."

"He taught me also, and said unto me, Let thine heart retain my words: keep my commandments, and live. Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth. Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee. Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding. Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her. She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee."

"Be not wise in thine own eyes."

"My son, if thou wilt receive my words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the fear of the LORD, and find the knowledge of God. For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding."

"Do you desire wisdom? Keep the commandments and the Lord will give her to you without measure; for fear of the Lord is wisdom and learning"

"Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents."

"To that dauntless temper of his mind, He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour To act in safety."

"Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise."

"Wisdom and fortune combating together, If that the former dare but what it can, No chance may shake it."

"Full oft we see Cold wisdom waiting on superfluous folly."

"The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure."

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

"I am interested in a phase that I think we are entering. I call it "teleological evolution," evolution with a purpose. The idea of evolution by design, designing the future, anticipating the future. I think of the need for more wisdom in the world, to deal with the knowledge that we have. At one time we had wisdom, but little knowledge. Now we have a great deal of knowledge, but do we have enough wisdom to deal with that knowledge?"

"There is the instance of the Gadarene swine, where it certainly was not very kind to the pigs to put the devils into them and make them rush down the hill into the sea. You must remember that He was omnipotent, and He could have made the devils simply go away; but He chose to send them into the pigs. Then there is the curious story of the fig-tree, which always rather puzzled me. You remember what happened about the fig-tree. "He was hungry; and seeing a fig-tree afar off having leaves, He came if haply He might find anything thereon; and when he came to it He found nothing but leaves, for the time of figs was not yet. And Jesus answered and said unto it: 'No man eat fruit of thee hereafter for ever'.... and Peter.... saith unto Him: 'Master, behold the fig-tree which thou cursedst is withered away.'" This is a very curious story, because it was not the right time of year for figs, and you really could not blame the tree. I cannot myself feel that either in the matter of wisdom or in the matter of virtue Christ stands quite as high as some other people known to History. I think I should put Buddha and Socrates above Him in those respects."

"Having granted the excellence of these maxims, I come to certain points in which I do not believe that one can grant either the superlative wisdom or the superlative goodness of Christ as depicted in the Gospels... there one does find some things that do not seem to be very wise. For one thing, he certainly thought that His second coming would occur in clouds of glory before the death of all the people who were living at that time. There are a great many texts that prove that. He says, for instance, "Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel till the Son of Man be come." Then he says, "There are some standing here which shall not taste death till the Son of Man comes into His kingdom"; and there are a lot of places where it is quite clear that He believed that His second coming would happen during the lifetime of many then living. That was the belief of His earlier followers, and it was the basis of a good deal of His moral teaching. When He said, "Take no thought for the morrow," and things of that sort, it was very largely because He thought that the second coming was going to be very soon, and that all ordinary mundane affairs did not count. I have, as a matter of fact, known some Christians who did believe that the second coming was imminent. I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden. The early Christians did really believe it, and they did abstain from such things as planting trees in their gardens, because they did accept from Christ the belief that the second coming was imminent. In that respect, clearly He was not so wise as some other people have been, and He was certainly not superlatively wise."

"To realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom."