For most of those which were great once are small today. And those that used to be small were great in my own time. Knowing, therefore, that human prosperity never abides long in the same place, I shall pay attention to both.
Author: Herodotus | Subjects: Material Possessions, Personal Improvement, Success / Failure, Wisdom
Life is difficult. This is a great truth, one of the greatest truths. […] Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult. Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life were generally easy, as if life should be easy. They voice their belief, noisily or subtly, … [ Read more ]
Author: M. Scott Peck | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
The wise know what to be thinking about, whereas the merely intelligent only know how to think.
Author: Scott Berkun | Subjects: Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry, Wisdom
When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.
Author: Wayne Dyer | Subjects: Miscellaneous, Wisdom
Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d rather have been talking.
Author: Aristotle | Subject: Wisdom
Great spirits have always found violent opposition from mediocre minds. The latter cannot understand it when a man does not thoughtlessly submit to hereditary prejudices but honestly and courageously uses his intelligence.
Author: Albert Einstein | Subjects: Intelligence | Knowledge, Wisdom
This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night of the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.
Author: William Shakespeare | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
Responsibility for every injustice that occurs is borne not only by the person who commits it but, also, by those who fail to prevent it.
Author: Erich Kästner | Subjects: Culture, Life & Society, Wisdom
How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.
Author: Stephen Covey | Subjects: Life & Society, Wisdom
The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
Author: William James | Subject: Wisdom
There is an Indian tale that goes like this. At the beginning of time God decided to give humans the highest form of power, which belonged to God himself. Of course, humans decided to misuse and abuse that power. Later, God decided that he wanted to reserve this power for just those who earned it. So God decided to call a meeting with his angels. … [ Read more ]
Author: Unknown | Subjects: Personal Improvement, Wisdom
There is no worse sickness for the soul, o you who are proud, than this pretense of perfection.
Author: Mevlana Rumi | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Wisdom
Don’t judge others by their behavior and yourself by your intentions.
Author: Unknown | Subject: Wisdom
To avoid disillusionment with human nature, we must first give up our illusions about it.
Author: Abraham Maslow | Subjects: Psychology | Behavior, Wisdom
A wise man listening to a fool will learn more than a fool listening to a wise man.
Author: Unknown | Subject: Wisdom
To be serious is to notice and remember the specifics, the contradictions, the ambiguities, to honor the whole human person rather than to reduce him or her to a one-dimensional symbol of virtuous victimhood or (for that matter) anything else. It is to tell the truth about the world, however much that truth may confound ideology, rather than to turn “living issues into abstractions.”
Author: V.S. Naipaul | Subjects: Perception | Observation, Wisdom
In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero.
Subjects: Learning, Reading | Writing, Wisdom
I have, alas, studied philosophy/jurisprudence and medicine, too,
And, worst of all, theology
With keen endeavor, through and through –
And here I am, for all my lore,
The wretched fool I was before.
Called Master of Arts, and Doctor to boot …
Author: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Source: Faust | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Philosophy, Wisdom
There are people who get exactly what they want. You think they’re the lucky ones, but they’re not. The lucky ones are those who do what they are meant to do.
Author: Neem Karoli Baba | Subjects: Life & Society, Meaning, Wisdom
Here’s the problem: You begin to develop attachments to meaningless things, to sense objects. From those attachments, you make choices. From those choices, you find preferences. From those preferences, you identify with the best or the worst attributes of some of them. That identification takes you directly to the land of illusion, because those attributes are meaningless. From that identification comes cognitive dissonance. As a … [ Read more ]
Author: Larry Brilliant | Subjects: Philosophy, Wisdom