Quotes about Wisdom

Here's the penultimate section of quotes from my book 1000 Great Quotations for Business, Management & Training.


An updated version of the book is newly available as part of my Almost Free Kindle titles both in the UK and in the USA.

We can be knowledgeable with other men’s knowledge but we cannot be wise with other men’s wisdom.

Michel de Montaigne, French essayist (1533-1592)

Knowledge is proud that he has learned so much; Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.

William Cowper, British poet (1731-1800)

The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.

H L Mencken, US journalist (1880-1956)

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.

John Stuart Mill, British philosopher, economist (1806-1873)

The believer is happy. The doubter is wise.

Hungarian proverb

An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight. The truly wise person is ‘colour-blind’.

Albert Schweitzer, Alsatian theologian (1875-1965)

Albert Schweitzer

If one is too late to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.

Cyril Connolly, British critic, author (1903-1974)

Be wiser than other people, if you can, but do not tell them so.

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4^th Earl of Chesterfield, British statesman, letter-writer (1694-1773)