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Learning and Wisdom Quotes


Top 50 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Learning and Wisdom Quotes

I know that I know nothing.

- Socrates (470-399 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right.

 

Three other philosophers agree with this need to accept your own ignorance:

 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it.

- Karl Popper (1902-94), Austrian-born British philosopher, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it; not having it, confess your ignorance,

- Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

When men are the most sure and arrogant, they are commonly the most mistaken,

- David Hume (1711-76), the Scottish philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 2Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Truth is what works.

- William James (1842-1910), pictured right , American psychologist and philosopher.

 

Here are some other views on truth:

 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now – always,

- Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965), German philosopher and doctor, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

 

Fashions fade but truth endures,

- Thomas Kuhn (1922-96), American scientist, pictured right.

 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

There are two kinds of truths: truths of reasoning and truths of fact,

- Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), German philosopher and mathematician, pictured right

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

 

The truth is not always the same as the majority decision,

- John Paul II (1920-2005), pictured right, Polish pope

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The truth of a thing or idea is its meaning,

- Erich Fromm (1900-80), American philosopher and psychologist, pictured right .

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die,

- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55), Danish philosopher, pictured right

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The search for truth is more precious than its possession.

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist, pictured right

 

 

No 3Learning and Wisdom Quotes

I think, therefore I am.

-René Descartes (1596–1650), French philosopher and mathematician, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Blaise Pascal 1623–62, the French scientist and philosopher, pictured right ,makes two similar comments:

Man is only a reed, the weakest thing in nature; but he is a thinking reed.

Thought constitutes the greatness of man

 

 

No 4Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?

Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

(from the 1934 poem The Rock)

- T.S. Eliot (1888-1965), pictured right above, American-born British writer

 

 

No 5

The price of wisdom is above rubies

(Job 28:18)

- the Bible.

 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Oprah Winfrey (1954-), the African American chat show host,, pictured right agrees:

Inner wisdom is more precious than wealth

 

 

No 6Learning and Wisdom Quotes

If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.

- Isaac Newton (1642–1727), English scientist, pictured right.


 

 

No 7Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Almighty God has created the mind free.

(from the Virginian statute for religious freedom)

- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), American president, pictured right

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Herbert Agar (1897-1980), the American writer (pictured right), also comments in his 1942 book A Time for Greatness:

The truth that makes men free is for the most part the truth which men prefer not to hear.  

 

 

No 8Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Seeing much, suffering much and studying much are the three pillars of learning.

- Benjamin Disraeli (1804-81) British prime mminister, pictured right

 

 

No 9Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,

Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content,

Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things;

(from the 1856 poem Song of the Open Road in Leaves of Grass)

- Walt Whitman (1819-92), pictured right above, American poet.

 

 

No 10Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom is oft times nearer when we stoop than we soar,

(from the 1814 poem The Excursion)

- William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet, pictured right.  

 

 

No 11

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

- St Paul, early Christian leader (in his letter to the Romans 12:2)

 

Song of the Open Road

M. Scott Peck , pictured right, in The Road Less Travelled (1978) also comments:

The life of wisdom must be a life of contemplation, combined with action,

 

 

 

No 12Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.

-Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) American philosopher, pictured right.

  

 

No 13Learning and Wisdom Quotes

My brain? It's my second favourite organ,

(from the 1973 film Sleeper)

- Woody Allen (1935- ), pictured right,  American film actor and director.

 

 

No 14Learning and Wisdom Quotes

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.

- Francis Bacon (1561–1626), English philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

 Learning and Wisdom Quotes

- Lord Byron (1788-1824), the English poet (pictured right), also comments:

I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

 

 

No 15Learning and Wisdom Quotes

An expert is one who knows more and more about less and less.

- Nicholas Murray Butler (1862–1947), American philosopher and educator, pictured right.

 

 

No 16Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience.

- Comte de Buffon (1707–88), French naturalist, pictured right.

 

 

No 17Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.

- T. H. Huxley (1825–95), English biologist, pictured right

 

 

No 18Learning and Wisdom Quotes

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’—that is all

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever.

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

(from the 1820 poem Ode on a Grecian Urn)

- John Keats (1795-1821), pictured right above, English poet.

 

 

No 19Learning and Wisdom Quotes


The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

- William James (1842–1910), pictured right , American philosopher and psychologist.

 

 

No 20Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Truth is ever to be found in simplicity.

- Isaac Newton (1642–1727), English scientist, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Oscar Wilde, pictured right, in The Importance of Being Earnest (1895) disagrees:

The truth is rarely pure, and never simple.
 

 

No 21Learning and Wisdom Quotes

You can’t conquer an idea with an army.

- Thomas (Tom) Paine (1737-1809), English philosopher, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Helen Keller (1880-1968), the American campaigner for the disabled, pictured right, agrees:

Tyranny cannot defeat the power of ideas

 

 

No 22Learning and Wisdom Quotes

To the wise, life is a problem; to the fool, a solution.

- Marcus Aurelius (121-180), Roman emperor and philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 23Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Doubt is the origin of wisdom.

- René Descartes (1596-1650), French philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 24Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Iron rusts from disuse...so does inaction sap the vigour of the mind.

- Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) Italian painter, sculptor, architect and engineer, pictured right.

 

Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Richard Cumberland (1631–1718), pictured right, the English philosopher, puts it this way:

It is better to wear out than to rust out.

 

 

No 25Learning and Wisdom Quotes

I never met a man so unknowledgeable, I could not learn something from him.

- Galileo (1564-1642), Italian scientist and astronomer, pictured right.

 

 

No 26Learning and Wisdom Quotes

A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 27Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Once you stop learning, you start dying,

-Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born American scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 28Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The human mind is our fundamental resource.

- John F. Kennedy (1917–63), American president, pictured right.

 

 

No 29Learning and Wisdom Quotes

There is no greatness where simplicity, goodness and truth are absent.

(from the novel War and Peace)

- Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), Russian writer, pictured right.  

 

 

No 30Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Nothing is more terrible than activity without insight.

- Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), Scottish philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 31Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.

- Lao Tzu (c604-c531 BC),Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 32Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Superstition sets the whole world in flames, philosophy quenches them.

- Voltaire (1698-1778),French philosopher and writer, pictured right .

 

 

No 33Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Some questions don’t have answers which is a terribly difficult lesson to learn.

- Katherine Graham, American boss of the Washington Post 1963-79, pictured right .

 

 

No 34Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Learning is more effective when it is an active rather than a passive process.

- Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), American psychologist, pictured right.

 

 

No 35Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than threats to be avoided.

- Albert Bandura (1925-), Canadian psychologist, pictured right

 

 

No 36Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Thought is free.

(Stephano in The Tempest)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right

 

 

No 37Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you’d rather have been talking.

- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 38Learning and Wisdom Quotes

We learn better in a free spirit of curiosity than under fear and compulsion.

- St. Augustine (354-430), Algerian philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 39Learning and Wisdom Quotes

No one can give you better advice than yourself.

- Cicero (106-43 BC), Roman philosopher and politician, pictured right.

 

 

No 40Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.

- Confucius (551-479 BC), Chinese philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 41Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Prejudice always obscures the truth.

- Juror 8 (Henry Fonda) in the 1957 film Twelve Angry Men, pictured right.

 

 

No 42Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Everything must be doubted.

- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55), the Danish philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 43Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Patience is the companion of wisdom.

- St. Augustine (354-430), Algerian philosopher, pictured right.


 

 

No 44Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Men who are lovers of wisdom must be enquirers into many things.

- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right

 

 

No 45Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Reason is and ought only to be the slave of the passions.

- David Hume (1711-76), Scottish philosopher, pictured right

Hume also comments

Beauty is no quality in things themselves. It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them

 

No 46Learning and Wisdom Quotes

There is no darkness but ignorance.

(Feste in Twelfth Night)

- William Shakespeare (1564-1616), English playwright, pictured right.

 

 

No 47Learning and Wisdom Quotes

Man is far too clever to be able to survive without wisdom.

- Ernst Friedrich (Fritz) Schumacher, pictured right, in Small is Beautiful (1973)

 

 

 No 48Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The meaning of your life is what you make of it.

- A.C. Grayling (1949- ), English philosophy professor and writer (pictured right).

 

No 49Learning and Wisdom Quotes

The energy of the mind is the essence of life.

- Aristotle (384-322 BC), Greek philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 50Learning and Wisdom Quotes

My best friend is truth.

- Isaac Newton (1642–1727), English scientist, pictured right.


 

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Quotes