The Heart of the Matter
November 07, 2017
What Is Wisdom?

All people, at sometime in their lives, aspire to be wise. But what is wisdom, really? I don't know. But here's what some sages, throughout the years, have said about it. Food for thought and beyond thought for you to contemplate.

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"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." - Aristotle

"The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Where wisdom reigns, there is no conflict between thinking and feeling." - Carl Jung

"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise; seek what they sought." - Basho

"The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool." - Shakespeare

"All truly wise thoughts have been thought already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, until they take root in our personal experience." - Goethe

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." - Socrates

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." - Isaac Asimov

"Any fool can know. The point is to understand." - Albert Einstein

"The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them." - Paulho Coelho

"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

"Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom." - Lao Tzu

"The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms." - Socrates

"Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself." - Rumi

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

"The desire to reach for the stars is ambitious. The desire to reach hearts is wise." - Maya Angelou

"Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"It is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err." - Gandhi

"Wonder is the beginning of wisdom." - Socrates

"This being human is a guest house. Every morning is a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all. Treat each guest honorably. The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." - Rumi

"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it." - Albert Einstein

"A man is not called wise because he talks and talks again; but if he is peaceful, loving and fearless then he is in truth called wise." - Buddha

"There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart." - Charles Dickens

"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us." - Marcel Proust

"Wisdom is knowing I am nothing. Love is knowing I am everything, and between the two, my life moves." - Nisargadatta Maharaj

"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

"Many have died; you also will die. The drum of death is being beaten. The world has fallen in love with a dream. Only the sayings of the wise will remain." - Kabir

"I thought to myself: I am wiser than this man; neither of us probably knows anything that is really good, but he thinks he has knowledge, when he has not, while I, having no knowledge, do not think I have." - Plato

"Wisdom is the oneness of mind that guides and permeates all things." - Heraclitus

"Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody." - Benjamin Franklin

"To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Posted by Mitch Ditkoff at November 7, 2017 08:31 AM

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