Quotes about wisdom

“To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom,” Viviane said. “Then, when you begin to learn, you will not have to forget all the things you think you know.”

The poor dear cannot differentiate between erudition and wisdom.

My Master said, on another Occasion, that those who doubt most, always erred least.

Nothing in any life, no matter how well or poorly lived, is wiser than failure or clearer than sorrow.

The little boy I watched throwing pebbles into the empty fountain [...] You could tell that he had too much wisdom for his age. Probably he believed that he wasn't made for this world. I wanted to say to him: If not you, who?

"The sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and hope."

[A] loving heart was better and stronger than wisdom...

“What work have I got to do, then?” said Will, but went on at once, “No, on second thought, don’t tell me. I shall decide what I do. If you say my work is fighting, or healing, or exploring, or whatever you might say, I'll always be thinking about it. And if I do end up doing that, I'll be resentful because it’ll feel as if I didn’t have a choice, and if I don’t do it, I'll feel guilty because I should. Whatever I do, I will choose it, no one else.”

“Then you have already taken the first steps toward wisdom,” said Xaphania.

She said that all the history of human life has been a struggle between wisdom and stupidity. She and the rebel angels, the followers of wisdom, have always tried to open minds; the Authority and his churches have always tried to keep them closed.

"You have a strange way about you, Dr. Grumman. You ever spend any time among the witches?"

"Yes," said Grumman. "And among academicians, and among spirits. I found folly everywhere, but there were grains of wisdom in every stream of it. No doubt there was much more wisdom that I failed to recognize. Life is hard, Mr. Scoresby, but we cling to it all the same."

"And this journey we're on? Is that folly or wisdom?"

"The greatest wisdom I know."

"Tell me again what your purpose is. You're going to find the bearer of this subtle knife, and what then?"

"Tell him what his task is."

"And that's a task that includes protecting Lyra," the aeronaut reminded him.

"It will protect all of us."

“Okay,” she said, “I’ll listen to the wise. Are you wise?”

“Wise enough,” he said, “and mighty experienced, which is the same thing if you’re not too stupid.”

Serenity is the first thing people with addiction issues are instructed to request: God, grant me the serenity To accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.