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Wisdom Quotes

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100 Wisdom Quotes to Guide Better Thinking and Better Living

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." – Socrates
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." – Friedrich Nietzsche
"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." – Marcus Aurelius
"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not." – Epicurus
"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom." – Lao Tzu
"The more you know, the more you realise you don't know." – Aristotle
"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality." – Seneca
"You must be the change you wish to see in the world." – Mahatma Gandhi
"Freedom is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie beyond our control." – Epictetus
"Happiness depends upon ourselves." – Aristotle
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear." – Ram Dass
"The unexamined life is not worth living." – Socrates
"All men’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone." – Blaise Pascal
"To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders." – Lao Tzu
"Truth is not something outside to be discovered, it is something inside to be realised." – Osho
"Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated." – Confucius
"The greatest wealth is to live content with little." – Plato
"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." – William Shakespeare
"What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others." – Confucius
"A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer." – Bruce Lee
"Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." – Winston Churchill
"When you arise in the morning, think of what a privilege it is to be alive." – Marcus Aurelius
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man." – Heraclitus
"In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity." – Albert Einstein
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." – Edmund Burke
"Our life is what our thoughts make it." – Marcus Aurelius
"It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it." – Seneca
"He who opens a school door, closes a prison." – Victor Hugo
"To know oneself is the beginning of all wisdom." – Aristotle
"Man conquers the world by conquering himself." – Zeno of Citium
"The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts." – Marcus Aurelius
"He who is not a good servant will not be a good master." – Plato
"Silence is a source of great strength." – Lao Tzu
"Wisdom begins in wonder." – Socrates
"It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not." – André Gide
"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain." – Aristotle
"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together." – African Proverb
"All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them." – Galileo Galilei
"Better to trip with the feet than with the tongue." – Zeno of Elea
"He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still." – Lao Tzu
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." – William Shakespeare
"If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things." – René Descartes
"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." – Lao Tzu
"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions." – Leonardo da Vinci
"Don’t count the days, make the days count." – Muhammad Ali
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." – Leonardo da Vinci
"Experience is the teacher of all things." – Julius Caesar
"Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise." – Victor Hugo
"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." – Bertrand Russell

Magnified glass looking at wise words on a scroll
"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do." – John Wooden
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." – Aristotle
"Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." – James Baldwin
"Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it." – Henry David Thoreau
"You don't have a life, you are life" – Eckhart Tolle
"Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d have preferred to talk." – Doug Larson
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes." – Carl Jung
"All men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil." – Sophocles
"The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions." – Confucius
"The best index to a person’s character is how he treats people who can’t do him any good." – Abigail Van Buren
"The more a man knows, the more he forgives." – Catherine the Great
"Character is higher than intellect. A great soul will be strong to live as well as think." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"He who opens a school door, closes a prison." – Victor Hugo
"The quieter you become, the more you can hear." – Ram Dass
"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality." – Plutarch
"Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself." – Erich Fromm
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." – Aristotle
"The journey is what brings us happiness, not the destination." – Dan Millman
"In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." – Albert Einstein
"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how." – Friedrich Nietzsche
"We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future." – George Bernard Shaw
"A man who has committed a mistake and doesn’t correct it is committing another mistake." – Confucius
"We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are." – Anaïs Nin
"Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers." – Voltaire
"It is not length of life, but depth of life." – Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Turn your wounds into wisdom." – Maya Angelou
"You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself." – Galileo Galilei
"The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom." – H.L. Mencken
"The measure of intelligence is the ability to change." – Albert Einstein
"He who is not a good servant will not be a good master." – Plato
"Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action." – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"A wise man learns more from his enemies than a fool from his friends." – Baltasar Gracián
"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." – Jimi Hendrix
"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." – Søren Kierkegaard
"The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free." – Baruch Spinoza
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination." – Albert Einstein
"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." – Socrates
"The wise man does not expose himself needlessly to danger, since there are few things for which he cares sufficiently." – Aristotle
"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." – William Shakespeare
"To be even-minded is the greatest virtue." – Heraclitus
"The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well." – Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
"To attain knowledge, add things every day. To attain wisdom, remove things every day." – Lao Tzu
"There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle." – Albert Einstein
"The more you know, the less you need." – Yvon Chouinard
"Do not be wise in words. Be wise in deeds." – Jewish Proverb
"Be as you wish to seem." – Socrates
"Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it." – Epictetus
"Silence is a source of great strength." – Lao Tzu
"If you would be wise, pretend to be wise, and you will become wise." – Publius Syrus
"The more you know, the more you realize you don't know." – Aristotle

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