Wisdom Quotes: Wise Sayings About Life

People have been sharing their wisdom with each other since the beginning of time, so we have put together a list of all the best wise quotes for you to share. And if you’re looking for short wise quotes for Instagram, we also have you covered.

Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.

Wisdom Quotes

“Every twist and turn in life is an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, your interests, your talents, and how to set and then achieve goals.” — Jameela Jamil

“An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.” — Dalai Lama

“A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion.” – Chinese Proverb

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” – Oprah Winfrey

“Adventure is out there.” — Up

“Never did nature say one thing and wisdom another.” – Edmund Burke

“He who opens a school door, closes a prison.” — Victor Hugo

“The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are perpetuated by quotations” – Benjamin Disraeli

“It’s what you do right now that makes a difference.” — Black Hawk Down

“Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.” – Benjamin Franklin

“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” – Bertrand Russell

“Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.” — James Madison

“We’re all just walking each other home.” — Ram Dass

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney

“Knowledge begins with wonder.” — Socrates

“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” — Nelson Mandela

“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” — Steve Jobs

“Knowledge has a beginning but no end.” — Geeta Iyengar

“Ignorance is the night of the mind.” — Confucius

“The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt

“All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Knowledge is of no value unless you put it into practice.” — Anton Chekhov

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”— Thomas A. Edison

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” — Henry David Thoreau

“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” — Mark Twain

“To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone, and a funny bone.” — Reba McEntire

“Knowledge is power.” — Francis Bacon

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.” — Oprah Winfrey

“Know thyself.” — Socrates

“They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.” ― Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol

“All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.” — Peter Pan

“The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility: and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” — Socrates

“The secret to getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.” — Alfred Lord Tennyson

“The best teachers are those who show you where to look but don’t tell you what to see.” — Alexandra K. Trenfor

“High achievement always takes place in the framework of high expectation.” — Charles Kettering

“The wisest of the wise may err.” – Aeschylus

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — The Little Prince

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” — Nelson Mandela

“I don’t go by the rule book…I lead from the heart, not the head.” — Princess Diana

“Learning is a treasure that will follow its owner everywhere.” — Chinese Proverb

“It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase them.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.” — John F. Kennedy

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.” — Robert Frost

“Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.” — C.S. Lewis

“Wisdom at times is found in folly.” – Horace

“Mistakes are the portals of discovery.” — James Joyce

“The older I grow the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” – H. L. Mencken

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss

“Knowledge is power. But the real trick is applying it.” — Sherlock Holmes

“Speak less, say more.” – Unknown

“The only wealth which you will keep forever is the wealth you have given away.” — Marcus Aurelius

“Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” — Henry Ford

“Isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?” — L.M. Montgomery

“There is no knowledge that is not power.” — Mortal Kombat

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.” – Unknown

“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

“It’s the simple things in life that are the most extraordinary; only wise men are able to understand them.” – Paulo Coelho

“He that can compose himself is wiser than he that composes books.” – Benjamin Franklin

“The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.” — Henry Ford

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.” — Robert Frost

“If you cannot do great things, do small things in a great way.” — Napoleon Hill

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” ― Dale Carnegie

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.” — Mae West

“Knowledge increases, wisdom deepens.”

“Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” — The Man Who Knew Infinity

“Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.” — Mahatma Gandhi

“Friendship doubles our joy and divides our grief.” — Marcus Tullius Cicero

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” — Mark Twain

“Common sense in an uncommon degree is what the world calls wisdom.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” — Jack Canfield

“Knowledge is like a garden; if it is not cultivated, it cannot be harvested.” — African Proverb

“I am not afraid of storms, for I am learning how to sail my ship.” — Louisa May Alcott

“The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day. After all, a movement is only people moving.” — Gloria Steinem

“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot—it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.” — Maya Angelou

“Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.” — Elbert Hubbard

“The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful, and then only for a short while.” – Albert Einstein

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh.” – Kahlil Gibran

“The secret of freedom lies in educating people.” — Maximilien Robespierre

“Wise men are not always silent, but they know when to be.” – Unknown

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” – Albert Einstein

“Success is falling nine times and getting up 10.” — Jon Bon Jovi

“When a thing is done, it’s done. Don’t look back. Look forward to your next objective.” — George C. Marshall

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.” — Alexander Pope

“Wisdom is a good purchase, though we pay dearly for it.” – Dutch Proverb

“The bad news is time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot.” ― Michael Altshuler

“He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

“Wisdom hears one thing and understands three things.” – Chinese Proverb

“The only thing that you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library.” — Albert Einstein

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.

“The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.” — Aristotle

“He that respects himself is safe from others.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“The difference between winning and losing is most often not quitting.” — Walt Disney

“Don’t taunt the alligator until after you’ve crossed the creek.” [couldn’t resist including this one: it’s wise and commonsensical, though not really about wisdom as such] – Dan Rather

“A wise man hears one word and understands two.” — Yiddish Proverb

“The more you know who you are, and what you want, the less you let things upset you.” — Lost in Translation

“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” ― Robert Louis Stevenson

“Never stop learning because life never stops teaching.”

“Fear is an illusion. You think something is standing in your way, but nothing is really there. What is there is an opportunity to do your best and gain some success.” — Michael Jordan

“The older you get, the more fragile you understand life to be. I think that’s good motivation for getting out of bed joyfully each day.” — Julia Roberts

“The wise are only once betrayed.” – German Proverb

“In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” — Abraham Lincoln

“History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.” – Abba Eban

“Doubt is the key to knowledge.” — Persian Proverb

“Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens.” — Jimi Hendrix

“You have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.” — The Queen’s Gambit

“There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.” – Charles Dickens

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” — Aristotle

“Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Learning never exhausts the mind.” — Leonardo da Vinci

“I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position that one has reached in life as by the obstacles which he has had to overcome while trying to succeed.” — Booker T Washington

“Experience is the teacher of all things.” — Julius Caesar

“Knowledge in youth is wisdom in age.” – Proverb

“We seem to gain wisdom more readily through our failures than through our successes. We always think of failure as the antithesis of success, but it isn’t. Success often lies just the other side of failure.” – Leo Buscaglia

“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.”

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” — Confucius

“Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” — William Arthur Ward

“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.” — Nicholas Murray Butler

“The advancement and diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty.” — James Madison

“The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” — B.B. King

“It does not matter how slowly you go, as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.” – Socrates

“A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” — Jim Morrison

“You build on failure. You use it as a stepping stone. Close the door on the past. You don’t try to forget the mistakes, but you don’t dwell on it. You don’t let it have any of your energy, or any of your time, or any of your space.” — Johnny Cash

“Find out who you are and do it on purpose.” — Dolly Parton

“Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people.” — John Adams

“Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it.” —Henry David Thoreau

“Knowledge is power. Information is liberating. Education is the premise of progress.” — Kofi Annan

“Education is the passport to the future.” — Malcolm X

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss

“Learning is not attained by chance, it must be sought for with ardor and attended to with diligence.” — Abigail Adams

“The great aim of education is not knowledge but action.” — Herbert Spencer

“Let me embrace thee, sour adversity, for wise men say it is the wisest course.” – William Shakespeare

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled.” — Plutarch

“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.” — Albert Einstein

“You can never plan the future by the past.” — Edmund Burke

“Singleness of purpose is one of the chief essentials for success in life, no matter what may be one’s aim.” — John D. Rockefeller

“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.” — Jackie Robinson

“Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.” – Hermann Hesse

“Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.” — Albert Einstein

“It is not knowledge, but the act of learning, not possession but the act of getting there, which grants the greatest enjoyment.” — Carl Friedrich Gauss

“Power concedes nothing without a demand.” — Frederick Douglass

“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” — Peter Pan

“I have very strong feelings about how you lead your life. You always look ahead, you never look back.” — Ann Richards

“I believe we are here on the planet Earth to live, grow up and do what we can to make this world a better place for all people to enjoy freedom.” — Rosa Parks

“Arrogance diminishes wisdom.” – Arabian Proverb

“Let us read and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world.” — Voltaire

“Lost time is never found again.” — Benjamin Franklin

“Knowledge is love and light and vision.” — Helen Keller

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present.” ― Unknown

“Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” — Henry Van Dyke

“Life just doesn’t hand you things. You have to get out there and make things happen. That’s the exciting part.” — Emeril Lagasse

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” — Oliver Wendell Holmes

“True abundance isn’t based on our net worth, it’s based on our self-worth.” — Gabrielle Bernstein

“Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.” — Anthony J. D’Angelo

“Adversity is the first path to truth.” — Lord Byron

“The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.” — W.B. Yeats

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.” ― Helen Keller

“Be a bush if you can’t be a tree. If you can’t be a highway, just be a trail. If you can’t be a sun, be a star. For it isn’t by size that you win or fail. Be the best of whatever you are.” — Martin Luther King Jr.

“Half a man’s wisdom goes with his courage.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” — Stephen Hawking

“Never lose sight of the fact that the most important yard stick to your success is how you treat other people.” — Barbara Bush

“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it — then I can achieve it.” ― Muhammad Ali, The Soul of a Butterfly: Reflections on Life’s Journey

“As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in the darkness of mere being.” — Carl Jung

My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style.” — Maya Angelou

“Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.” — A.A. Milne

“When you have a dream, you’ve got to grab it and never let go.” — Carol Burnett

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

“The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” — Mark Twain

“If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough.” — Oprah Winfrey

“The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics, whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” — John F. Kennedy

“A wise man, recognizing that the world is but an illusion, does not act as if it were real, so he escapes suffering”. – Buddha

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” — Nido Qubein

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” — Frederick Douglass

“When you do the common things in life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world.” — George Washington Carver

“A dead end is just a good place to turn around.” — Naomi Judd

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.

“The more you learn, the more places you’ll go.” — Dr. Seuss

“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” — A.A. Mine

“All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.” ― Earl Nightingale

“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Wisdom begins in wonder.” — Socrates

“Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible.” — Henry Ford

“In any given moment we have two options: to step forward into growth or step back into safety.” — Abraham Maslow

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.” — Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You’ll Go

“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson

So that is it for our list of Wise Quotes. We hope you found the perfect one for you!

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