Great Throughts Treasury

"Laugh if you are wise." - Martial, full name Marcus Valarius Martialis NULL

"To-morrow I will live, the fool does say; to-day itself's too late; the wise man lived yesterday." - Martial, full name Marcus Valarius Martialis NULL

"Whoever is not too wise, is wise." - Martial, full name Marcus Valarius Martialis NULL

"The days that make us happy make us wise." - John Masefield

"Best trust the happy moments. What they gave makes man less fearful of that certain grave and gives his work compassion and new eyes, the days that make us happy make us wise." - John Masefield

"Knowledge is acquired by study and observation, but wisdom cometh by opportunity of leisure; the ripest thought comes from the mind which is not always on the stretch, but fed, at times, by a wise passiveness." - William Matthews

"There was a wise man in the east whose constant prayer was that he might see today with the eyes of tomorrow." - Alfred Mercier

"The wise is not hasty to answer." -

"A wise man sees as much as he ought, not as much as he can." - Michel de Montaigne, fully Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

"We want to live our lives as wise warriors and die as men. We may not even know what it is until the moments of our deaths. Then, the questions come. Have we worked to release another soul from pain? Have we opened a way that was once closed? Have we learned from the steeps and dips? Then we can rest assured that we have lived as men and died as warriors." - Daniel Abdal-Hayy Moore

"Wise men make Proverbs, but Fools repeat 'em." - Samuel Palmer

"A man should never be assumed foolish till he has proved himself foolish - this we owe him. A man should never be assumed wise till he has proved himself wise - this we owe to ourselves." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

"The owl is, therefore, the bird of wisdom because even a fool can see when it is light; it is the wise man who can see when it is dark." - Nikita Ivanovich Panin

"Show is not substance; realities govern wise men." - William Penn

"The mind of the wise is the palace of God." - Philo, aka Philo of Alexandria, Philo Judaeus, Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, Yedidia, "Philon", and Philo the Jew NULL

"No one is wise at all times." - Pliny the Elder, full name Casus Plinius Secundus NULL

"As in our lives so also in our studies, it is most becoming and most wise, so to temper gravity with cheerfulness, that the former may not imbue our minds with melancholy, nor the latter degenerate into licentiousness." - Pliny the Younger, full name Casus Plinius Caecilius Secundus, born Gaius Caecilius or Gaius Caecilius Cilo NULL

"From the errors of others a wise man corrects his own." - Publius Syrus

"He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so." - Publius Syrus

"Loss pains the miser, not the wise man." - Publius Syrus

"Silence is the highest wisdom of a fool as speech is the greatest trial of a wise man. If thou wouldst be known as wise, let thy words show thee so; if thou doubt thy words, let thy silence feign thee so. It is not a greater point of wisdom to discover knowledge than to hide ignorance." - Francis Quarles

"Art is always the index of social vitality, the moving finger that records the destiny of a civilization. A wise statesman should keep an anxious eye on this graph, for it is more significant than a decline in exports or a fall in the value of a nation's currency." - Herbert Read, fully Sir Herbert Edward Read

"The question is, whether, like the Divine Child I the temple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father’s business, and becoming wise to God." -

"It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves." -

"A kingdom is embellished by the wise, and religion rendered illustrious by the pious." - Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL

"The wise who consorts with fools will become a fool, and the fool who consorts with fools will become a greater fool." - Sa'di (or Saadi), pen name of Abū-Muḥammad Muṣliḥ al-Dīn bin Abdallāh Shīrāzī, born Muslih-uddin NULL

"Wise men wage war only for the sake of peace." -

"A childlike mind, in its simplicity, practices that science of good to which the wise may be blind." - Friedrich Schiller, fully Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller

"Thought wit be very useful, yet unless a wise man has the keeping of it, that knows when, where, and how to apply it, it is like wild-fire, that flies at rovers, runs hissing about, and blows up everything that comes in its way. Without any respect or discrimination." -

"Luck never made a man wise." -

"Perhaps, if only the tale told by the wise men is true and there is a bourne to welcome us, then he whom we think we have lost has only been sent on ahead." -

"Those things on which philosophy has set its seal are beyond the reach of injury; no age will discard them or lessen their force, each succeeding century will add somewhat to the respect in which they are held; for we look upon what is near us with jealous eyes, but we admire what is further off with less prejudice. The wise man’s life, therefore, includes much; he is not hedged in by the same limits which confine others; he alone is exempt from the laws by which mankind is governed; all ages serve him like a god. If any time be past he recalls it by his memory, if it be present he uses it, if it be future he anticipates it; his life is a long one because he concentrates all times into it." -

"Is it wise to love without reason? The world... was not created as an act of reason but as an act of love. And the reason for love is not reason." - Noah benShea

"There is only work and love in life, thought Jacob. If we are fortunate, we love our work. If we are wise, we are willing to work at love." - Noah benShea

"The wise man questions the wisdom of others because he questions his own, the foolish man because of its different from his own." - Leo Stein

"The life of any one can by no means be changed after death; an evil life can in no wise be converted into a good life, or an infernal into an angelic life; because every spirit, from head to foot, is of the character of love, and, therefore, of his life; and to convert this life into its opposite would be to destroy the spirit utterly." - Emanuel Swedenborg, born Emanujel Swedberg

"No wise man ever wished to be younger." - Jonathan Swift, pen names, M.B. Drapier, Lemuel Gulliver, Isaac Bickerstaff

"‘Tis held that sorrow makes us wise." - Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, Commonly called Alfred Lord Tennyson

"It becomes a wise man to try words before arms." - Terence, full Latin name Publius Terentius Afer NULL

"Hope inspires the wise, and deludes the indolent." -

"It is poverty in a rich man to despise the poor and ignorance in a wise man to despise the ignorant." - Constance C. Vigil

"No man can be wise against his own wishful thinking." - Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel

"A vigorous five-mile walk will do more for an unhappy but other wise healthy adult than all the medicine and psychology in the world." - Paul Dudley White

"Men and women are biological facts. Ladies and gentleman - citizens - are social artifacts, works of political art. They carry the culture that is sustained by wise laws, and traditions of civility. A the end of the day we are right to judge a society by the character of the people it produces. That is why statecraft is, inevitably, soulcraft." - George Frederick Will

"He is oft the wisest man who is not wise at all." - William Wordsworth

"Be wise to-day - ‘tis madness to defer." - Edward Young

"Seize wisdom ere ‘tis torment to be wise; that is, seize wisdom ere she seizes thee." - Edward Young

"The weak have remedies, the wise have joys; superior wisdom is superior bliss." - Edward Young

"We protract the career of time by employment, we lengthen the duration of our lives by wise thoughts and useful actions. Life to him who wishes not to have lived in vain is thought and action." - Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

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