Wise Quotes

The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.

Luck can be assisted. It is not all chance with the wise.

I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.

The wise man must remember that while he is a descendant of the past, he is a parent of the future.

True conservation provides for wise use by the general public. The American people do not want our resources preserved for the exclusive use of the wealthy. These land and water resources belong to the people, and people of all income levels should have easy access to them.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.

I had a very wise mother. She always kept books that were my grade level in our house.

Living Life Tomorrow's fate, though thou be wise, Thou canst not tell nor yet surmise; Pass, therefore, not today in vain, For it will never come again.

If I'm a commodity, it wouldn't be a wise idea to buy stock in me - although, in the long run, maybe I'm a slow growth investment.

A wise ruler ought never to keep faith when by doing so it would be against his interests.

A wise man looks upon men as he does on horses; all their comparisons of title, wealth, and place, he consider but as harness.

A wise traveler never despises his own country.

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

The wise learn many things from their enemies.

A smart man only believes half of what he hears, a wise man knows which half.

Whatever the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to the safety resulting from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise.

It is by a wise economy of nature that those who suffer without change, and whom no one can help, become uninteresting. Yet so it may happen that those who need sympathy the most often attract it the least.

In quiet moments when you think about it, you recognize what is critically important in life and what isn't. Be wise and don't let good things crowd out those that are essential.

In marriage do thou be wise: prefer the person before money, virtue before beauty, the mind before the body; then thou hast a wife, a friend, a companion, a second self.

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Thinking well to be wise: planning well, wiser: doing well wisest and best of all.

He was a wise man who originated the idea of God.

Job's avoidance of rebellion against God has nothing to do with God being good or wise or anything like that; it's strictly because God is so powerful, and you don't fight something when you are so much weaker than that which you would fight.

We can learn much from wise words, little from wisecracks, and less from wise guys.

The wise become as the unwise in the enchanted chambers of Power, whose lamps make every face the same colour.

Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay.

It's easier to be wise for others than for ourselves.

There is no God, Nature sufficeth unto herself; in no wise hath she need of an author.