120 Wisdom Quotes To Inspire

In a world that constantly inundates us with information, finding words of true wisdom can be a breath of fresh air. Whether you're seeking to spark innovation, foster resilience, or simply find peace in the chaos, a few well-chosen words can make all the difference. That's why we've curated a comprehensive collection of the top 120 wisdom quotes that are designed to inspire, uplift, and ignite thoughtful reflection. These quotes, gathered from a diverse array of thinkers and eras, serve as timeless reminders of the human capacity for insight and growth. Get ready to dive into a treasure trove of wisdom that will enlighten your mind and nurture your spirit.

1. “The man of wisdom is never of two minds;the man of benevolence never worries;the man of courage is never afraid.” - Confucius

2. “Take the matter as you find it ask no questions, utter no remonstrances; it is your best wisdom. You expected bread and you have got a stone: break your teeth on it, and don't shriek because the nerves are martyrised; do not doubt that your mental stomach - if you have such a thing - is strong as an ostrich's; the stone will digest. You held out your hand for an egg, and fate put into it a scorpion. Show no consternation; close your fingers firmly upon the gift; let it sting through your palm. Never mind; in time, after your hand and arm have swelled and quivered long with torture, the squeezed scorpion will die, and you will have learned the great lesson how to endure without a sob.” - Charlotte Brontë

3. “The way out is through the door. Why is it that no one will use this method?” - Confucius

4. “Just as your car runs more smoothly and requires less energy to go faster and farther when the wheels are in perfect alignment, you perform better when your thoughts, feelings, emotions, goals, and values are in balance.” - Brian Tracy

5. “The act of taking the first step is what separates the winners from the losers.” - Brian Tracy

6. “I've learned that you shouldn't go through life with a catcher's mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw some things back.” - Maya Angelou

7. “Prefiero, señor, obrar bien y fracasar, antes que triunfar con malas artes.Palabras de Neoptólemo a Odiseo, en la tragedia griega Filoctetes.” - Sófocles

8. “The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.” - Emerson

9. “No plaque reminds the passer-by of these glories, although there should be one; for those who invent biscuits bring great pleasure to many.” - Alexander McCall Smith

10. “Wenn du weißt, behaupte, dass du es weißt. Und wenn du etwas nicht weißt, gib zu, dass du es nicht weißt. Das ist Wissen.” - Konfuzius

11. “Anybody can look at a pretty girl and see a pretty girl. An artist can look at a pretty girl and see the old woman she will become. A better artist can look at an old woman and see the pretty girl that she used to be. But a great artist-a master-and that is what Auguste Rodin was-can look at an old woman, protray her exactly as she is...and force the viewer to see the pretty girl she used to be...and more than that, he can make anyone with the sensitivity of an armadillo, or even you, see that this lovely young girl is still alive, not old and ugly at all, but simply prisoned inside her ruined body. He can make you feel the quiet, endless tragedy that there was never a girl born who ever grew older than eighteen in her heart...no matter what the merciless hours have done to her. Look at her, Ben. Growing old doesn't matter to you and me; we were never meant to be admired-but it does to them.” - robert heinlein

12. “Can you look without the voice in your head commenting, drawing conclusions, comparing, or trying to figure something out?” - Eckhart Tolle

13. “Wisdom does not make me full. It fills me with hunger.” - Noah BenShea

14. “When something seems wrong in your life, the only way to have resolution with it is to let it go. Trying to make it right keeps it wrong.” - Beth Johnson

15. “I must not, like the quietists, reduce all religion to a denial of any specific action, despising all other means, since what makes perfection is God's order, and the means he ordains is best for the soul.” - Jean-Pierre de Caussade

16. “If you don't feel it, flee from it. Go where you are celebrated, not merely tolerated.” - Paul F. Davis

17. “If opportunity doesn't knock, build a door” - Milton Berle

18. “If everyone helps to hold up the sky, then one person does not become tired.” - Askhari Johnson Hodari

19. “You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.” - Voltaire

20. “You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” - Sharon Salzberg

21. “Yet what keeps me from dissolving right now into a complete fairy-tale shimmer is this solid truth, a truth which has veritably built my bones over the last few years--I was not rescued by a prince; I was the administrator of my own rescue.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

22. “If there is a wasp in the room, I’d like to be able to see it.” - C. S. Lewis

23. “The road to wisdom is paved with excess. The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and familiarize the strange.” - Walt Whitman

24. “Sometimes you weren't supposed to share pain. Sometimes it was best just to deal with it alone.” - Sarah Addison Allen

25. “Let the fear of danger be a spur to prevent it; he that fears not, gives advantage to the danger.” - Francis Quarles

26. “I will not deny but that the best apology against false accusers is silence and sufferance, and honest deeds set against dishonest words.” - John Milton

27. “Whoever wants the "I" to yield up its mysterious and tremendous secret must stop it from looking perpetually in the mirror, must stop the little ego's fascination with its own image.” - Paul Brunton

28. “Boy, the solid things you can hold in your hands are never all you've got. They're the least of what belong to you. The qualities inside you, those are what you've really got to defend yourself with.” - Traci L. Slatton

29. “If we still advise we shall never do.” - Elizabeth I

30. “Yoga is the cessation of the movements of the mind. Then there is abiding in the Seer's own form.” - Patanjali

31. “With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.” - Oscar Wilde

32. “The most wonderful and the strongest things in the world, you know, are just the things which no one can see.” - Charles Kingsley

33. “To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.” - Nicolaus Copernicus

34. “Ask a deeply religious Christian if he’d rather live next to a bearded Muslim that may or may not be plotting a terror attack, or an atheist that may or may not show him how to set up a wireless network in his house. On the scale of prejudice, atheists don’t seem so bad lately.” - Scott Adams

35. “Quote words that affirmall men and women are yourbrothers and sisters.” - Author-Poet Aberjhani

36. “Sometimes one likes foolish people for their folly, better than wise people for their wisdom.” - Elizabeth Gaskell

37. “What distances can be explored without God?” - Sorin Cerin

38. “Wise men, when in doubt whether to speak or to keep quiet, give themselves the benefit of the doubt, and remain silent.” - Napoleon Hill

39. “Every time we start thinking we're the center of the universe, the universe turns around and says with a slightly distracted air, 'I'm sorry. What'd you say your name was again?” - Margaret Maron

40. “There are occasions and causes, why and wherefore in all things.” - William Shakespeare

41. “It does not matter how long you are spending on the earth, how much money you have gathered or how much attention you have received. It is the amount of positive vibration you have radiated in life that matters,” - Amit Ray

42. “Probably the wisest words that were ever uttered to me. Came from a therapist. I was sitting in her office, crying my eyes out. . . and she said, "So let me get this straight. You base your personal happiness on things entirely out of your control.” - Laura Munson

43. “See, the ‘small stuff’ is what makes up the larger picture of our lives. Many people are like you, young man. But their perspective is distorted. They ignore ‘small stuff,’ claiming to have an eye on the bigger picture, never understanding that the bigger picture is composed of nothing more than-are you ready?- ‘small stuff’.” - Andy Andrews

44. “This is the best possible way to retain important details that you wish to remember in any unified field of knowledge, whether it be the field of economics, science, history, or any other--link them up with related items which you already know or wouldn't mind knowing.” - Ralph Alfred Habas

45. “Dzieje kultury wykazują, ze głupota jest siostrą bliźniaczą rozumu, ona rośnie najbujniej nie na glebie dziewiczej ignorancji , lecz na gruncie uprawnym siódmym potem doktorów i profesorów. Wielkie absurdy nie są wymyślane przez tych, których rozum krząta się wokół spraw codziennych. Nic dziwnego zatem, że właśnie najintensywniejsi myśliciele bywali producentami największego głupstwa. / The history of culture shows that foolishness is a twin sister of wisdom. It does not flourish on the fields of pure ignorance but on the fields tirelessly plowed by doctors and professors. Great absurdities do not flourish where one is busy with everyday life. No wonder that sometimes most vigorous thinkers come up with utmost stupidities. (Dziennik 1956, XIX, Thursday)” - Witold Gombrowicz

46. “It takes 43 muscles to frown and 3 to raise the middle finger.” - Mariel

47. “Just remember this, my girl, when you look up in the sky you can see the stars and still not see the light.” - Jack Tempchin

48. “It's other people who make us wise, and I haven't known nearly enough.” - Mary E. Pearson

49. “Do you understand what I'm saying?"shouted Moist. "You can't just go around killing people!""Why Not? You Do." The golem lowered his arm."What?" snapped Moist. "I do not! Who told you that?""I Worked It Out. You Have Killed Two Point Three Three Eight People," said the golem calmly."I have never laid a finger on anyone in my life, Mr Pump. I may be–– all the things you know I am, but I am not a killer! I have never so much as drawn a sword!""No, You Have Not. But You Have Stolen, Embezzled, Defrauded And Swindled Without Discrimination, Mr Lipvig. You Have Ruined Businesses And Destroyed Jobs. When Banks Fail, It Is Seldom Bankers Who Starve. Your Actions Have Taken Money From Those Who Had Little Enough To Begin With. In A Myriad Small Ways You Have Hastened The Deaths Of Many. You Do Not Know Them. You Did Not See Them Bleed. But You Snatched Bread From Their Mouths And Tore Clothes From Their Backs. For Sport, Mr Lipvig. For Sport. For The Joy Of The Game.” - Terry Pratchett

50. “My father taught me that you can you read a hundred books on wisdom and write a hundred books on wisdom, but unless you apply what you learned then its only words on a page. Life is not lived with intentions, but action.” - Shannon Alder

51. “What sets humans apart from animals is that we have to walk around saying how smart we are, and animals just live their lives.” - Chanctetinyea J. J. Ouellette

52. “Man masters nature not by force, but by understanding” - Jacob Bronowski

53. “Non-judgment quiets the internal dialogue, and this opens once again the doorway to creativity.” - Deepak Chopra

54. “Insults sting but a little when they stem from a man's ignorance.” - Susan Wiggs

55. “Think of the jazz improv artist responding to the musical banter among her fellow players onstage. Aside from whatever training they've done in advance, as soon as the curtain opens, they move into unknown territory together, creating something new each time by remaining in a state of undivided presence.” - Donna Quesada

56. “Forever is a really long time, you know? What do you do with forever?""The same thing you do when you don't have forever." He smiled wanly. "Live.” - Amanda Hocking

57. “Knowledge is like an endless resource; a well of water that satisfies the innate thirst of the growing human soul. Therefore never stop learning... because the day you do, you will also stop maturing.” - Chidi Okonkwo

58. “I reject animal welfare reform and single-issue campaigns because they are not only inconsistent with the claims of justice that we should be making if we really believe that animal exploitation is wrong, but because these approaches cannot work as a practical matter. Animals are property and it costs money to protect their interests; therefore, the level of protection accorded to animal interests will always be low and animals will, under the best of circumstances, still be treated in ways that would constitute torture if applied to humans.By endorsing welfare reforms that supposedly make exploitation more “compassionate” or single-issue campaigns that falsely suggest that there is a coherent moral distinction between meat and dairy or between fur and wool or between steak and foie gras, we betray the principle of justice that says that all sentient beings are equal for purposes of not being used exclusively as human resources. And, on a practical level, we do nothing more than make people feel better about animal exploitation.” - Gary L. Francione

59. “Only those who row the boat make waves” - Christina Dodd

60. “The whole world is beautiful, Belgarion' Eriond assured him in response to that unspoken thought. 'You just have to know how to look at it” - David Eddings

61. “Fiction is written with reality and reality is written with fiction. We can write fiction because there is reality and we can write reality because there is fiction; everything we consider today to be myth and legend, our ancestors believed to be history and everything in our history includes myths and legends. Before the splendid modern-day mind was formed our cultures and civilizations were conceived in the wombs of, and born of, what we identify today as "fiction, unreality, myth, legend, fantasy, folklore, imaginations, fabrications and tall tales." And in our suddenly realized glory of all our modern-day "advancements" we somehow fail to ask ourselves the question "Who designated myths and legends as unreality? " But I ask myself this question because who decided that he was spectacular enough to stand up and say to our ancestors "You were all stupid and disillusioned and imagining things" and then why did we all decide to believe this person? There are many realities not just one. There is a truth that goes far beyond what we are told today to believe in. And we find that truth when we are brave enough to break away from what keeps everybody else feeling comfortable. Your reality is what you believe in. And nobody should be able to tell you to believe otherwise.” - C. JoyBell C.

62. “Patience is a natural consequence of the cultivation of compassion & love, for ourselves and all beings.” - Allan Lokos

63. “Some people are like thorns. But you have to let them be thorns, because thorns can't turn into petals. The trick is not letting them prick you; never let a thorn prick you!” - C. JoyBell C.

64. “a wise woman puts a grain of sugar in everything she says to a man, and takes a grain of salt with everything he says to her.” - Helen Rowland

65. “Look no farther than your hand,Make a choice and take a stand.” - Shannon Hale

66. “But the character of the music emphasized the tale as allegory--humorous, poignant, humane allegory--disclosing the metamorphosis of life itself, in which man moves from confident inexperience through the bitterness of experience, toward the rueful wisdom of self-knowledge.” - Robertson Davies

67. “There was a considerable difference between the ages of my parents, but this circumstance seemed to unite them only closer in bonds of devoted affection.” - Mary Shelley

68. “Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.” - Bertrand Russell

69. “The question to ask is what will satisfy you? What will bring you peace? And perhaps the answer to those is in asking yourself when you were last happy.” - Eleanor Brown

70. “A botanist would have been stumped, coming across a tree like this one. Yet, if we are to judge a tree by its fruit, it was clearly an avocado. I picked the fruit, sliced it open, and tasted it to make sure. There was no doubt in my mind. If it looks like an avocado and tastes like an avocado, it has got to be an avocado. However, the tree itself had a white bark like that of a birch and its sap tasted like birch juice. Its leaves were delicate like that of a cypress, while its trunk and the root system reminded me of a baobab. Could it be that someone had grafted an avocado on to a baobab tree? And if so, why the bark so white and the leaves so, well, feathery, and delicate yet bold like a dragonfly’s wing? Why is there not another tree like it nearby? Where had the seed of this tree come from? I had no answer. So, I put the seed of the fruit in my pocket and took it home with me to see if I could make it grow.” - Uguïsse Packard

71. “In science, mistakes always precede the truth.” - Horace Walpole

72. “The man who can keep a secret may be wise, but he is not half as wise as the man with no secrets to keep” - Edgar Watson Howe

73. “After the final no there comes a yes / And on that yes the future world depends.” - Wallace Stevens

74. “The mermaid is an archetypal image that represents a woman who is at ease in the great waters of life, the waters of emotion and sexuality. She shows us how to embrace our instinctive sexuality and sensuality so that we can affirm the essence of our feminine nature, the wisdom of our bodies, and the playfulness of our spirits. She symbolizes our connection with our deepest instinctive feelings, our wild and untamed animal nature that exists below the surface of outward personalities. She is able to respond to her mysterious sexual impulses without abandoning her more human, conscious side. What happened to the girls who dreamed of being mermaids?” - Anita Johnston

75. “Life changes us. To wish otherwise is pointless.” - Nalini Singh

76. “Always give your resume of good deeds when you run into someone that you wronged many years ago. They simply need to know today's version of you, before they judge you on yesterday's news.” - Shannon L. Alder

77. “Never say no to now” - Benny Bellamacina

78. “I feared my own kind more than anything the natural world could ever threaten me with.” - Robin Hobb

79. “Whenever man attempts to do what he knows to be the Master's will, a power will be given him equal to the duty.” - Fulton J. Sheen

80. “Great men and women are not extraordinary people who do extraordinary things. They are ordinary people who do ordinary things with integrity.” - Jayce O'Neal

81. “They say faith is taking the first step when you can’t see the whole staircase. Actually, wisdom is seeing the elevator behind it that would have taken you to the top floor.” - Shannon L. Alder

82. “Watch a man in times of adversity to discover what kind of man he is; for then at last words of truth are drawn from the depths of his heart, and the mask is torn off.” - Lucretius

83. “No man is an island, no man stands alone” - Dennis Brown crown prince of reggae

84. “The way you see people is the way you treat them, and the way you treat them is what they become.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

85. “Wisdom isn't built on experience; it's built on reason...” - Lionel Suggs

86. “We built tall buildings, but we have not become any taller.” - Dejan Stojanovic

87. “A breeze, a forgotten summer, a smile, all can fit into a storefront window.” - Dejan Stojanovic

88. “Christ did not ask or want to be what he was not.” - Dejan Stojanovic

89. “Our desire to say more grows bigger and what to say about it, except that saying is not always about saying, growing is not always about growing.” - Dejan Stojanovic

90. “A good head and a good heart are always a formidable combination.” - Nelson Mandela

91. “If an ancient man saw planes two thousand years ago He would've thought they were birds Or angels from another world Or messengers from other planets.” - Dejan Stojanovic

92. “If you are only what you are, You at least have a chance Not to outsmart, But be on a par with yourself And that is worth trying.” - Dejan Stojanovic

93. “To understand possible means to understand impossible.” - Dejan Stojanovic

94. “A hidden spark of the dream sleeps In the forest and waits In the celestial spheres of the brain.” - Dejan Stojanovic

95. “All dust is the same dust. Temporarily separated To go peacefully And enjoy the eternal nap.” - Dejan Stojanovic

96. “A word only writes Its night and ridesIts dream.” - Dejan Stojanovic

97. “This corn will teach to you, should you peel away the husk, and be willing to open your ears.” - Anthony Liccione

98. “Long ago we conquered our passions looking at ourselves in the mirror of eternity.” - Dejan Stojanovic

99. “While gazing at myself from yourself, I was beautiful.” - Dejan Stojanovic

100. “They are both spectacular, Life and death.” - Dejan Stojanovic

101. “Sophia was asked to speak to the students of a local medical school. “Sophia, what do we need to be better doctors?” the students asked. “Doctors,” Sophia said, “need strong stomachs and strong powers of observation.” Then she opened a canister. The putrid smell quickly moved through the classroom. Sophia stuck a finger in the jar, pulled it up, and then licked it. She passed the jar around encouraging each doctor in training to do the same. Each did, and though many felt nauseas, no one got sick. “You all have very strong stomachs,” she said. “But your powers of observation need some work.” “What do you mean?” they asked. “We did just what you did.” “There is one difference,” she replied. “The finger I dipped in the jar was not the finger I licked.” - David W. Jones

102. “Even a God finds it hard to love and be wise at the same time.” - Tina Smith

103. “A traitor may betray himself and do good he does not intend.” - J.R.R. Tolkien

104. “The world would hate His followers, not because of evil in their lives, but precisely because of the absence of evil or rather their goodness. Goodness does not cause hatred, but it gives occasion for hatred to manifest itself. The holier and purer a life, the more it would attract malignity and hate. Mediocrity alone survives.” - Fulton J. Sheen

105. “I am just another blind man. I do not get the whole picture of what transpires in all places. I am blind and limited. I would be a fool to think myself wise. And so, not knowing what the universe means, I can only try to be responsible with the knowledge, the strength, and the time given to me.” - Jim Butcher

106. “Before you can see the Light, you have to deal with the darkness.” - Dan Millman

107. “In Antartica, The Wright and half a dozen other valleys in the Central Transantarctic Mountains are collectively referred to as the dry valleys. It has not rained here in two million years. No animal abides, no plant grows. A persistent, sometimes ferocious wind has stripped the country to stone and gravel, to streamers of sand. The huge valleys stand stark as empty fjords. You look in vain for any conventional sign of human history- the vestige of a protective wall, a bit of charcoal, a discarded arrowhead. Nothing. There is no history, until you bore into the layers of rock or until the balls of your fingertips run the rim of a partially exposed fossil. At the height of the austral summer, in December, you smell nothing but the sunbeaten stone. In a silence dense as water, your eye picks up no movement but the sloughing of sand, seeking its angle of repose. On the flight in from New Zealand it had occurred to me, from what I had read and heard, that Antarctica retained Earth’s primitive link, however tenuous, with space, with the void that stretched out to Jupiter and Uranus. At the seabird rookeries of the Canadian Arctic or on the grasslands of the Serengeti, you can feel the vitality of the original creation; in the dry valleys you sense sharply what came before. The Archeozoic is like fresh spoor here.” - Barry Lopez

108. “God grant me the senility to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do, and the eyesight to tell the difference.” - Ron Sims

109. “I had a magical day during one Sunday when I walked out in nature. On the outside this day only consisted of taking a walk out in the beautiful sunny weather and cleaning my apartment, but on the inside everything suddenly changed. When I walked out in nature in the sunny weather, a silent explosion suddenly happened within me and my whole perception of reality changed. In a single moment, everything had changed, although nothing on the outside had really changed. Everything on the outside was exactly as before, but my way of seeing had changed. The difference was that before I did not see and now I could see. My eyes were open. Suddenly I was one with everything, one with the stones, one with the trees and one with the people that I meet on my walk. My heart danced with joy together with a feeling of: ”I am God”. Not that I am the creator of everything, but that I am part of the Whole, part of the divine. It felt like coming home, that Existence is my home. I also saw that even if the people that I meet did not understand that they are a part of the Whole, they still are a part of the Whole. I felt the waves of Existence in my own heart and being and I felt like a small wave in a great ocean. It gave a taste of the eternal, a taste of the limitless and boundless source of creativity. In just a few moments, I learnt more than during 20 years in university. Wisdom is basically the understanding that we all are part of the Whole. We are all small rivers moving towards the ocean. I laughed at the fact that enlightenment is really our innate birthright, and that small children already live in this mystical unity with the Whole.” - Swami Dhyan Giten

110. “Any point of view reflects some side of truth and must not claim that it is complete” - Anatoliy Obraztsov

111. “Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.” - Wayne W. Dyer

112. “The tenth gift is Wisdom. Guiding your way, wisdom will lead you through knowledge to understanding. May you hear its soft voice.” - Charlene Costanzo

113. “If you want to make an ordinary man happy, or think that he is happy, give him money, power, flattery, gifts, honours. If you want to make a wise man happy - improve yourself!” - Idries Shah

114. “There are times when wisdom cannot be found in the chambers of parliament or the halls of academia but at the unpretentious setting of the kitchen table.” - E.A. Bucchianeri

115. “The wisdom of LIFE eludes even the best...For those who pass the test Life is a fest,While, its forever, A battle for the rest..” - Sujit Lalwani

116. “eventually tides will be the only calendar you believe in…And someone’s face, whom you love, will be as a starBoth intimate and ultimate, And you will be heart-shaken and respectful. And you will hear the air itself, like a beloved, whisperOh let me, for a while longer, enter the twoBeautiful bodies of your lungs...Look, and look again.This world is not just a little thrill for your eyes.It’s more than bones.It’s more than the delicate wrist with its personal pulse.It’s more than the beating of a single heart.It’s praising.It’s giving until the giving feels like receiving.You have a life- just imagine that!You have this day, and maybe another, and maybeStill another…And I have become the child of the clouds, and of hope.I have become the friend of the enemy, whoever that is.I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned, I have become younger.And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.” - Mary Oliver

117. “Oh, well, she decided as her eyes began to close, it is better to love foolishly than to hate bitterly. I hope I am wiser than I was and more kind.” - Carla Kelly

118. “For a lack of education, a child's future may hold no fortune.” - Dennis E. Adonis

119. “A prisoner's shackles would always be a lawyers joy.” - Dennis E. Adonis

120. “When prayer, rituals and ascetic life are just a means of self-indulgence, they are harmful rather than beneficial. This is quite obvious to people nowadays, when it is widely recognised that fixations are not the same as valuable and laudable observances. One should not pray if that prayer is vanity; rituals are wrong when they provide lower satisfactions, like emotional stimulus instead of enlightenment; he or she should not be an ascetic who is only enjoying it.” - Idries Shah