Wisdom is one of the jewels of a successful life, and like a diamond it has many facets.
We feel that it is best to understand wisdom not as having just a singular and narrow meaning, but rather as referring to a family of themes, which we refer to as facets of wisdom.
Hopefully, this guided collection of quotations will be helpful in identifying and appreciating many of these facets of wisdom.
1. Distinct Value
Wisdom is a distinctive and highly valued human attribute that plays an essential and central role in creating a successful life.
It is a form of knowing, but not identical to knowledge. It is intimately related to judgment and decision making, and is inseparable from the guidance of moral values and insightful common sense. And it is highly consequential for the outcomes of our actions, especially when it comes to happiness, well-being, and right-action.
“Great is wisdom; infinite is the value of wisdom. It cannot be exaggerated. It is the highest achievement of man.” (Thomas Carlyle)
“Wisdom is to the mind what health is to the body.” (Francois de La Rochefoucauld)
“Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.” (Confucius)
“Wisdom is not book learning but rather a quality or state of knowing what is true or right coupled with the judgment to discern constructive action.” (Sue Thoele)
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
“It is one thing to be clever and another to be wise.” (George R.R. Martin)
“Intelligence alone is not nearly enough when it comes to acting wisely.” (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
2. Becoming wise is never guaranteed. Wisdom must be learned and developed.
“Wisdom…comes not from age, but from education and learning.” (Anton Chekhov)
“Seek to learn constantly while you live; do not wait in the faith that old age by itself will bring wisdom.” (Solon)
“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.” (Tom Wilson)
“The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” (H.L. Mencken)
“To have lived long does not necessarily imply the gathering of much wisdom and experience. One who has pedaled twenty-five thousand miles on a stationary bicycle has not circled the globe. He or she has only garnered weariness.” (Paul Eldridge)
3. Living a value-based life
“Wisdom is the understanding of enduring values and the living of those values.” (Jiddu Krishnamurt)
“The function of wisdom is to discriminate between good and evil.” (Marcus Tillius Cicero)
“Your values create your compass that can navigate how you make decisions in your life.” (Roy T. Bennett)
“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” (Thomas Jefferson)
“The secret to achieving inner peace lies in understanding our inner core values – those things in our lives that are most important to us – and then seeing that they are reflected in the daily events of our lives.” (Hyrum W. Smith)
“Some people think only intellect counts, knowing how to solve problems, knowing how to get by, knowing how to identify an advantage and seize it. But the functions of intellect are inefficient without courage, love, friendship, compassion, and empathy.” (Dean Koonz)
4. The power of perspective
“Let us reflect on what is truly of value in life, what gives meaning to our lives, and set our priorities on the basis of that.” (Dalai Lama)
Wisdom is your perspective on life, your sense of balance, your understanding of how the various parts and principles apply and relate to each other. (Stephen Covey)
“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know.” (Leo Tolstoy)
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” (William James)
“One part of wisdom is knowing what you don’t need anymore and letting it go.” (Jane Fonda)
“The only thing you sometimes have control over is perspective. You don’t have control over your situation. But you have a choice of how you view it.” (Chris Pine)
“Chess teaches foresight, by having to plan ahead, vigilence, by having to keep watch over the whole chess board, caution, by having to restrain ourselves from making hasty moves, and finally, we learn from chess the greatest maxim in life – that even when everything seems to be going badly for us we should not lose heart, but always hoping for a change for the better, steadfastly continue searching for the solutions to our problems.” (Benjamin Franklin)
5. Discernment
“The first point of wisdom is to discern that which is false; the second, to know that which is true.” (Lactantius)
“Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.” (Lewis B. Smedes)
“We need discernment in what we see and what we hear and what we believe.” (Charles R. Swindoll)
“The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things – the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.” (Samuel Johnson)
“… discerning which information is actually true and valuable leads to wisdom, which leads to well-being. Practicing discernment empowers people to develop moral strength that improves well-being…” (Whitney Hopler)
“Remember, anybody can say anything! Anybody can write anything! Practice discernment or intelligent evaluation.” (Choa Kok Sui)
“True discernment means not only distinguishing the right from the wrong; it means distinguishing the primary from the secondary, the essential from the indifferent, and the permanent from the transient. And, yes, it means distinguishing between the good and the better, and even between the better and the best.” (Sinclair Ferguson)
“To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.” (Bertrand Russell)
6. Developing a good and strong character.
“The formation of one’s character ought to be everyone’s chief aim.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)
“Good character is…the noblest of all possessions.” (Samuel Smiles)
“Strong feelings do not necessarily make a strong character. The strength of a man is to be measured by the power of the feeling he subdues not by the power of those which subdue him.” (William Carleton)
“Goodness is about character – integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, moral courage, and the like. More than anything else, it is about how we treat other people.” (Dennis Prager)
“People grow through experience if they meet life honestly and courageously. This is how character is built.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
“Just as we develop our physical muscles through overcoming opposition – such as lifting weights – we develop our character muscles by overcoming challenges and adversity.” (Stephen Covey)
“When values, thoughts, feelings, and actions are in alignment, a person becomes focused and character is strengthened.” (John C. Maxwell)
“A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you and were helped by you will remember you when forget-me-nots have withered. Carve your name on hearts, not on marble.” (Charles Spurgeon)
7. A good attitude
“Attitude is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than what people do or say. It is more important than appearance, giftedness, or skill.” (Charles R. Swindoll)
“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” (Kahlil Gibran)
“Attitude is everything, so pick a good one.” (Wayne Dyer)
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” (Thomas Jefferson)
“Weakness of attitude becomes weakness of character.” (Albert Einstein)
“You cannot have a positive life and a negative mind.” (Joyce Meyer)
“A bad attitude is like a flat tire, you won’t get nowhere til you change it.” (Unknown)
“Having a positive attitude isn’t wishy-washy, it’s a concrete and intelligent way to view problems, challenges, and obstacles.” (Jeff Moore)
“I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude.” (Charles W. Swindoll)
8. Composure and State of Mind
“The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.” (Friedrich Nietzsche)
“When anger enters the mind, wisdom departs.” (Thomas a Kempis)
“It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.” (Henry David Thoreau)
“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)
“To be even-minded is the greatest virtue. Wisdom is to speak the greatest truth and act in keeping with its nature.” (Heraclitus)
“Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.” (William Cowper)
“Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom.” (Wilfred Bion)
“The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness.” (Michel de Montaigne)
9. Heartfelt
“There is wisdom of the head, and…there is wisdom of the heart.” (Charles Dickens)
“Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around.” (Leo Buscaglia)
“A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” (Charles Dickens)
“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.” (Kahlil Gibran)
“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” (Aristotle)
“I would rather make mistakes in kindness and compassion than work miracles in unkindness and hardness.” (Mother Teresa)
“Constant kindness can accomplish much. As the sun makes ice melt, kindness causes misunderstanding, mistrust, and hostility to evaporate.” (Albert Schweitzer)
“There is no wisdom without love.” (Nilakanta Sri Ram)
“What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau)
“The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise.” (Maya Angelou)
“Nine-tenths of wisdom is appreciation.” (Wilfred Grenfell)
“Sincerity is the most compendious (essential) wisdom.” (Lord Chesterfield)
“We shall never know all the good that a single smile can do.” (Mother Teresa)
10. Reflection
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)
“Wisdom comes from reflection.” (Deborah Day)
“There is one art which people should be masters – the art of reflection.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
“The unexamined life is not worth living.” (Socrates)
“One of the simplest and most powerful tools we have as individuals is the ability to pause. Think about it. When you pause on a machine, it stops. When we pause as humans, we begin. Pausing creates a space where one can see clearly.” (Don Seidman)
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” *Carl Jung)
“Although I have a regular work schedule, I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my mind. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.” (Albert Einstein)
“Aristotle once said that wisdom (the ability to make good decisions) is a combination of experience plus reflection. The more time that you take to think about your experiences, the more vital lessons you will gain from them.” (Brian Tracy)
“Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it…or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But, whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.” (Buddha)
11. Self-knowledge
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” (Aristotle)
“Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.” (Balastar Gracian)
“There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.” (Benjamin Franklin)
“Self knowledge is the beginning of self improvement.” (Baltasar Gracian)
“The biggest adversary in our life is ourselves. We are what we are, in a sense, because of the dominating thoughts we allow to gather in our head. All concepts of self-improvement, all actions and paths we take, relate solely to our abstract image of ourselves. Life is limited only by how we really see ourselves and feel about our being. A great deal of pure self-knowledge and inner understanding allows us to lay an all-important foundation for the structure of our life from which we can perceive and take the right avenues.” (Bruce Lee)
“If most of us remain ignorant of ourselves, it is because self-knowledge is painful and we prefer the pleasures of illusion.” (Aldous Huxley)
“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” (T.S. Elliot)
“The path isn’t a straight line. It’s a spiral. You continually come back to things you thought you understood and see deeper truths.” (Barry H. Gillespie)
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” (Rumi)
12. Learning from experience
“Wisdom is the daughter of experience.” (Leonardo da Vinci)
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)
“A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying…that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.” (Alexander Pope)
“A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.” (John C. Maxwell)
“Wisdom is seldom gained without suffering.” (Arthur Helps)
“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” (Oprah Winfrey)
“I do not think much of a man who is not wiser today than he was yesterday.” (Abraham Lincoln)
“Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.” (William Saroyan)
“Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.” (Will Rogers)
“I find the education I got from living in Derby and being streetwise and knowing the people that I know, the lessons that I had to learn growing up, have set me in good stead for this kind of working life.” (Jack O’Connell)
“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” (Henry Ford)
“We should be careful to get out of experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there lest we be like the cat that sat down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again and that is well but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore.” (Mark Twain)
13. Learning from the experience of others
“By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.” (Confucius)
“You’ve heard that it’s wise to learn from experience, but it is wiser to learn from the experience of others.” (Rick Warren)
“Experience is a master teacher, even when it’s not our own.” (Gina Greenlee)
“A word from the wise – from those who have experience in life – is far more valuable than many realize. If we are wise we will take it and make use of it, thus saving ourselves much time and grief.” (Dorothea S. Kopplin)
“We don’t have to waste our time learning how to make pastry when we can use grandma’s recipes.” (Orson De Witt)
“Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. Just learn from the guys who have already done it well. You need a mentor, a seasoned coach who is willing to share his wisdom and experience with you. Ask someone who has already been successful to guide you.” (George Foreman)
“Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.” (Douglas Adams)
“From the errors of others, a wise man can correct his own.” (Publilius Syrus)
“I wasn’t really testing it on myself as much as I was learning from other people about what it meant to live and love with your whole heart, and then thinking, oh my god, I’m not doing that.” (Brené Brown)
“Some of us learn from other people’s mistakes; the rest of us have to be the other people.” (Zig Ziglar)
“Everyone you will ever meet knows something you don’t.” (Bill Nye)
14. Knowing and doing
“Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.” (Charles Spurgeon)
“There is nothing so easy to learn as experience, and nothing so hard to apply.” (Josh Billings)
“Wisdom is exercised in the choices you make.” (Joyce Meyer)
“Of all parts of wisdom the practice is the best.” (John Tillotson)
“Knowledge without application is simply knowledge. Applying the knowledge to one’s life is wisdom – and this is the ultimate virtue.” (Kasi Kaye Illopoulis)
“In order for anything to happen you will have to act. Knowing is not enough. Neither is just being. Talking becomes annoying beyond a certain point. Doing makes all the difference. Doing converts thoughts into things. Doing turns talk into solutions and tangible results.” (Saidi Mdala)
“Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in “religion” mean nothing unless they make our actual behavior better.” (C.S. Lewis)
“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” (Baltasar Gracian)
“A thought which does not result in an action is nothing much, and an action which does not proceed from a thought is nothing at all.” (Georges Bernanos)
“Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.” (Saminu Kanti)
“An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.” (Friedrich Engels)
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)
15. Insight
“Self-examination is the key to insight, which is the key to wisdom.” (M. Scott Peck)
“If we were to have insight into life, and its many intricacies, we would have a treasure more valuable than anything we could imagine.” (Roy Chambers)
“Creativity and insight almost always involve an experience of acute pattern recognition: the eureka moment in which we perceive the interconnection between disparate concepts or ideas to reveal something new.” (Jason Silva)
“Insight doesn’t happen on the click of the moment, like a lucky snapshot, but comes in its own time and more slowly and from nowhere but within.” (Eudora Welty)
“The pleasure of the soul appears to be found in the journey of discovery, the unfolding revelation of expanded insight and experience.” (Anthony Lawlor)
“A moment’s insight is sometimes worth a life’s experience.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.)
“Nothing in life is more exciting and rewarding than the sudden flash of insight that leaves you a changed person.” (Arthur Gordon Webster)
“He has feelings excited not by the mere sight and outward appearance of objects, but by his insight of their nature and his knowledge of their relations.” (William Dexter Wilson)
“The highest exercise of imagination is not to devise what has no existence, but rather to perceive what really exists, though unseen by the outward eye—not creation, but insight.” (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
“Real genius of moral insight is a motor which will start any engine.” (Edmund Wilson)
16. Intuition
“The primary wisdom is intuition.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
“…a feeling for the order lying behind the appearance.” (Albert Einstein)
“Intuition is when we use our experience, and the patterns we have learned, to rapidly size up situations and know how to respond without going through deliberate analysis. Intuitions depend on the patterns we have acquired. Insight is about gaining new patterns.” (Gary A. Klein)
“Trust your hunches. They’re usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level.” (Joyce Brothers)
“Follow your instincts. That’s where true wisdom manifests itself.” (Oprah Winfrey)
“Listen to your inner voice. Trust your intuition. It’s important to have the courage to trust yourself.” (Dawn Ostroff)
“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” (Steve Jobs)
“Intuition is like reading a word without having to spell it out. A child can’t do that because it has had so little experience. A grown-up person knows the word because they’ve seen it often before.” (Agatha Christie)
“The wise always speak of what, with exactitude, cannot be put into words. Therefore it is necessary to have ears and subtleness to hear these words.” (Maria Corbi)
“We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it.” (Francoise de La Rochefoucauld)
“Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more be needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.” (Eckhart Tolle)
17. Common Sense
“Common sense is the genius of humanity.” (Johann Wolfgand von Goethe)
“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.” (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)
“The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.” (William Inge)
“In life, you need many more things besides talent. Things like good advice and common sense.” (Hack Wilson)
“I read, I study, I examine, I listen, I think, and out of all that I try to form an idea into which I put as much common sense as I can.” (Marquis de Lafayette)
“Common sense is not a gift, not a natural endowment, but an acquisition, a consequence of instinct acting with reason and enforcing its decisions.” (Thomas Jarrold)
“Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.” (Lord Chesterfield)
“The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are: Hard work, Stick-to-itiveness, and Common sense.” (Thomas A. Edison)
“In practice, such trifles as contradictions in principle are easily set aside; the faculty of ignoring them makes the practical man.” (Henry Adams)
“When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths or to reject absurdities and palpable contradictions.” (Baron d’Holbach)
18. …and beyond
….Top of page Image, (Diamond), by Stefan Kuhn, from pixabay.com