Famous Quotes & Sayings

Francis Bacon

Generally, youth is like the first cogitations, not so wise as the second. For there is a youth in thoughts, as well as in ages. And yet the invention of young men, is more lively than that of old; and imaginations stream into their minds better, and, as it were, more divinely.

Francis Bacon

He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief. Certainly the best works and of greatest merit for the public have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men, which both in affection and means have married and endowed the public. He was reputed one of the wise men that made answer to the question, when a man should marryA young man not yet, an elder man not at all.

Francis Bacon

In all superstition wise men follow fools.

Francis Bacon

Be not penny-wise. Riches have wings. Sometimes they fly away of themselves, and sometimes they must be set flying to bring in more.

Francis Bacon

There are many wise men that have secret hearts and transparent countenances.

Francis Bacon

One of the Seven [wise men of Greece] was wont to say: That laws were like cobwebs, where the small flies are caught and the great break through.

Francis Bacon

Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts.

Francis Bacon

The French are wiser than they seem, and the Spaniards seem wiser than they are.

Francis Bacon

The master of superstition, is the people; and in all superstition, wise men follow fools; and arguments are fitted to practice, in a reversed order.

Francis Bacon

Nothing doth more hurt in a state than that cunning men pass for wise.

Francis Bacon

Histories make men wise; poets, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural philosophy, deep; moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend.

Francis Bacon

Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.

Erwin McManus

A person God himself deems as wise is one who not only hears His voice, but immediately begins to act upon His instruction.

Erykah Badu

The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy.

Ernest Holmes

Nature will not let us stay in any one place for too long. She will let us stay just long enough to gather the experience necessary to the unfolding and advancement of the soul. This is a wise provision, for should we stay there too long, we would become too set, too rigid, too inflexible. Nature demands change in order that we may advance.

Erin Hunter

Whitestorm was experienced, wise and brave. When Firestar had been made deputy, he had shown not a scrap of resentment that a lesser cat might have felt. He had supported him from the beginning, and he was the cat Firestar naturally turned to when he needed advice.

Flann O'Brien

A wise old owl once lived in a wood, the more he heard the less he said, the less he said the more he heard, let's emulate that wise old bird.

Henry Moore

Nothing raises the price of a blessing like its removal; whereas, it was its continuance which should have taught us its value. [It is wise to be grateful of what we have while we have it.]

Henry Miller

The word which gives the key to the national vice is waste. And people who are wasteful are not wise, neither can they remain young and vigorous. In order to transmute energy to higher and more subtle levels one must first conserve it.

Henry Miller

...the wise man knows that every experience is to be viewed as a blessing.

Henry Miller

You are the only woman who has a sense of gaiety, a wise tolerance - no more, you seem to urge me to betray you. I love you for that. [...] I don't know what to expect of you, but it is something in the way of a miracle. I am going to demand everything of you - even the impossible, because you encourage it. You are really strong. I even like your deceit, your treachery. It seems aristocratic to me.

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

The wise woman patterns her life on the theory and practice of modern banking. She never gives her love, but only lends it on the best security and at the highest rate of interest.

Henning Mankell

Novels are . . . an unsurpassed form to understand people.

Henning Mankell

Some people give theirselves a certain number of white weeks once in a year, when they do not drink a single drop of alcohol. It is really wise. I myself have a few weeks per year, let us call them white or black, when I am not interested in the world around. When I come back from this isolation of the news, I realize that I have missed nothing significant. We live in the rain of disinformation and rumors, where the truth is a very small number. In those weeks of dissociation I seek for knowledge that lies within me.

Helen Keller

To keep on trying in spite of disappointment and failure is the only way to keep young and brave. Failures become victories if they make us wise-hearted.

Helen Keller

The wise fools who sit in the high places of justice fail to see that in revolutionary times vital issues are settled not by statutes, decrees and authorities, but in spite if them.

Helen Keller

No nation is wise enough to rule another.

Cat Stevens

There was no division I could see between the essential teaching of all Prophets and wise men of religion.

Cassandra Clare

Clary grinned. "A picnic? It's a little late for Central Park, don't you think? It's full of-" He waved a hand. "Faeries. I know." "I was going to say muggers," said Clary. "Though I pity the mugger who goes after you." "That is a wise attitude, and I commend you for it," said Jace, looking gratified.

Cassandra Clare

nothing ventured, nothing gained.

George Eliot

...Though there's reasons in things as nobody knows on---- that's pretty much what I've made out; yet some folks are so wise they'll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason's winking at 'em in the corner, and they niver see't.

George Eliot

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness to explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.

George Eliot

An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.