Famous Quotes & Sayings

Mark Twain

Adam was not alone in the Garden of Eden, however, and does not deserve all the credit; much is due to Eve, the first woman, and Satan, the first consultant.

Mary Browne

Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Few and precious are the words which the lips of Wisdom utter: To what shall their rarity be likened? What prices shall count their worth? Perfect, and much to be desired, and giving joy with riches, No lovely thing on earth can picture their fair beauty. They be chance pearls, flung among the rocks by the sullen waters of Oblivion.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

Contend not in wisdom with a fool, for thy sense maketh much of his conceit; And some errors never would have thriven, had it not been for learned refutation.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

True wisdom, laboring to expound, heareth others readily; False wisdom, sturdy to deny, closeth up her mind to argument.

Martin Farquhar Tupper

The sun of the mind, and the life of the heart is Wisdom. She is pure and full of light, crowning grey hairs with lustre, And kindling the eye of youth with a fire not its own.

Mark Twain

It is discouraging to try to penetrate a mind like yours. You ought to get it out and dance on it. That would take some of the rigidity out of it.

John Greenleaf Whittier

The child must teach the man.

Paul Newman

You only grow when you are alone.

Paul Eldridge

To have lived long does not necessarily imply the gathering of much wisdom and experience. One who has pedaled twenty-five thousand miles on a stationary bicycle has not circled the globe. He or she has only garnered weariness.

Marshall McLuhan

All discoveries in art and science result from an accumulation of errors.

Marion Zimmer Bradley

For there is no higher religion than the Truth.

Marion Zimmer Bradley

To know you are ignorant is the beginning of wisdom.

Michel de Montaigne

He who fears he will suffer, already suffers from his fear.

Michel de Montaigne

There is no conversation more boring than the one where everybody agrees.

Michel de Montaigne

Our wisdom and deliberation for the most part follow the lead of chance.

Michel de Montaigne

Wisdom is a solid and entire building, of which every piece keeps its place and bears its mark.

Michel de Montaigne

The most certain sign of wisdom is continual cheerfulness; her state is like the things above the moon, always clear and serene.

Michel de Montaigne

Lay a beam between these two towers of such width as we need to walk on: there is no philosophical wisdom of such great firmness that it can give us courage to walk on it as we should if it were on the ground.

Michel de Montaigne

Fie on the eloquence that leaves us craving itself, not things!

Michel de Montaigne

Only the fools are certain and assured.

Michel de Montaigne

We should spread joy, but, as far as we can, repress sorrow.

Michel de Montaigne

I love a gay and sociable wisdom, and shun harshness and austerity in behaviour, holding every surly countenance suspect.

Michel de Montaigne

Human wisdom makes as ill use of her talent when she exercises it in rescinding from the number and sweetness of those pleasures that are naturally our due, as she employs it favorably and well in artificially disguising and tricking out the ills of life to alleviate the sense of them.

Mark Twain

The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the life too closely examined may not be lived at all.

Marianne Williamson

God exists in eternity. The only point where eternity meets time is in the present. The present is the only time there is.

Marianne Williamson

The wisdom that comes from having experienced heartbreak cannot be bequeathed; it can only be gained through experience. And having truly felt it, we are far more likely to have compassion for others. Anything that takes us close to true compassion takes us closer to what will one day be an experience of even greater joy.

Francois Rabelais

Go, all of you poor people, in the name of God the Creator, and let him forever be your guide. And henceforth, do not be beguiledby these idle and useless pilgrimages. See to your families, and work, each one of you, in your vocation, raise your children, and live as the good Apostle Paul teaches you.

Francois Rabelais

So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done. [Fr., Afin que ne semblons es Athenians, qui ne consultoient jamais sinon apres le cas faict.]

Germaine Greer

Loneliness is never more cruel than when it is felt in close propinquity with someone who has ceased to communicate.

Germaine Greer

Act quickly, think slowly.

Harry Dean Stanton

You want people walking away from the conversation with some kernel of wisdom or some kind of impact.

George Wald

A physicist is an atom's way of knowing about atoms.