Wisdom
Quotes
Don’t
Sacrifice Yourself Too Much
“Guard
well your thoughts when alone and your words when accompanied.”
―
Roy T. Bennett
“Don’t
sacrifice yourself too much, because if you sacrifice too much there’s nothing
else you can give and nobody will care for you.”
―
Karl Lagerfeld
“Successful
people are always looking for opportunities to help others.
Unsuccessful
people are always asking, "What's in it for me?”
―
Brian Tracy
“Your
conscience is the measure of the honesty of your selfishness.
Listen
to it carefully.”
―
Richard Bach, Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“We
must live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
―
Martin Luther King Jr.
“Remember,
you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the
ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but
it is the farthest thing from it. Because cynics don’t learn anything. Because
cynicism is a self-imposed blindness, a rejection of the world because we are
afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say no. But saying “yes”
begins things. Saying “yes” is how things grow. Saying “yes” leads to
knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength
to, say “yes'.”
―
Stephen Colbert
“It
takes a very long time to become young.”
―
Pablo Picasso
“People
know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they
don't know is what they do does.”
―
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of
Reason
“The
lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will
only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the
mud --- the obstacles of life and its suffering. ... The mud speaks of the
common ground that humans share, no matter what our stations in life. ...
Whether we have it all or we have nothing, we are all faced with the same
obstacles: sadness, loss, illness, dying and death. If we are to strive as
human beings to gain more wisdom, more kindness and more compassion, we must
have the intention to grow as a lotus and open each petal one by one. ”
―
Goldie Hawn
“Sure,
we'd faced some things as children that a lot of kids don't. Sure, Justin had
qualified for his Junior de Sade Badge in his teaching methods for dealing with
pain. We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting
hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are
pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn
something.
Each
time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that
there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of
leaving something behind - gradutaing, taking the next step forward, walking
out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling
pain of life upending all of your plans and expecations. There's the sharp
little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't
give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of
hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your
love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain
of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help
them bear their burdens.
And
if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you
feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection,
an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot
possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.
Everyone
is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for
the living. Only the dead don't feel it.
Pain
is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but
either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain
does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes
away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it
leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important
that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or
another.”
―
Jim Butcher
“Wise?
No, I simply learned to think.”
―
Christopher Paolini, Eldest
“It's
not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it's what you
whisper to yourself that has the most power!”
―
Robert T. Kiyosaki
“I
felt like an animal, and animals don’t know sin, do they?”
―
Jess C. Scott, Wicked Lovely
“The
art of being wise is knowing what to overlook.”
―
William James
“It
is wise to direct your anger towards problems -- not people; to focus your
energies on answers -- not excuses.”
―
William Arthur Ward
“A
wise man gets more use from his enemies than a fool from his friends.”
―
Baltasar Gracian, The Art of Worldly Wisdom: A Pocket Oracle
“The
journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
―
Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
“No,
that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They
grow careful.”
―
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
“I
AM IGNORANT of absolute truth. But I am humble before my ignorance and therein
lies my honor and my reward.”
―
Khalil Gibran
“Don't
just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think
better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the
training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad
mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized
their contents.”
―
Epictetus, The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and
Effectiveness
