Wisdom

The best aphorisms are ... portable wisdom, the quintessential extracts of thought and feelings.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger, published in The Atlantic Monthly, vol. 11, issue 64 (February 1863). The Utility and the Futility of Aphorisms

Cunning is the dwarf of wisdom.
~ William Rounseville (W.R.) Alger

The hours of folly are measured by the clock; but of wisdom, no clock can measure.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
~ William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-93). Proverbs of Hell

Whoever is wise every hour of the day, must be very dull company.
~ William McKendree ("Will") Carleton, A Thousand Thoughts from Will Carleton: with Index of Subjects (1908).

The fool inherits, but the wise must get.
~ William Cartwright, The Ordinary (c. 1635). Act III, scene vi

There is commonly more practical wisdom in a striking aphorism than in a round dozen of "goody" books -- that is to say, books which are not good in the highest sense, because their themes are overlaid with commonplace and wearisome reflections.
~ William Alexander (W.A.) Clouston, Book of Wise Sayings: Selected Largely from Eastern Sources (1893). Preface

Wisdom is rooted in compassion.
~ Rev. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., in The Collected Sermons Of William Sloane Coffin: The Riverside Years, Volume 1 (2008). What Made The Wise Men Wise? (January 10, 1982)

You read of but one wise man, and all that he knew was that he knew nothing.
~ William Congreve, The Old Bachelor (1693). Act I, scene i

Only by standing on their shoulders can we build a better world, but we should use the wise as advisers, not masters.
~ William S. Coperthwaite, A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity (2003). Society by Design/Design by Society

A life all turbulence and noise may seem,
To him that leads it, wise and to be praised;
But wisdom is a pearl with most success
Sought in still water, and beneath clear skies.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book III. The Garden

It seems the part of wisdom, and no sin
Against the law of love, to measure lots
With less distinguished than ourselves, that thus
We may with patience bear our moderate ills,
And sympathise with others, suffering more.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book IV. The Winter Evening

Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,
The mere materials with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared, and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud that he has learn'd so much;
Wisdom is humble that he knows no more.
~ William Cowper, The Task (1785). Book VI. The Winter Walk At Noon

Wisdom and goodness are twin-born, one heart must hold both sisters, never seen apart.
~ William Cowper, from Poems by William Cowper of the Inner Temple, Esq. (1782). Expostulation

The farther I journey toward the West, the more convinced I am that the wise men came from the East.
~ William Davy, quoted in Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-law of the English Bar (1869).

A wise man is he who keeps his own secrets.
~ William Scott Downey, Proverbs, by Rev. William Scott Downey (1851 edition).

[B]efore taking steps the wise man knows the object and end of his journey.
~ William Edward Burghardt (W.E.B.) Du Bois, in The Crisis magazine (April 1915). The Immediate Program of the American Negro

Wisdom is the only liberator.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Story of Civilization, Volume II (1935). The Life of Greece

We are being destroyed by our knowledge, which has made us drunk with our power. And we shall not be saved without wisdom.
~ William James "Will" Durant, The Mansions of Philosophy: A Survey Of Human Life And Destiny (1929). Invitation

Wisdom is the right use or exercise of knowledge, and differs from knowledge, as the use which is made of a power or faculty differs from the power or faculty itself.
~ William Fleming, The Vocabulary of Philosophy, Mental, Moral, and Metaphysical (1856).

Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
~ William Godwin, An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793).

Wisdom is not only directly a means to virtue; it is also directly a means to happiness.
~ William Godwin, The Enquirer: Reflections on Education, Manners and Literature in a Series of Essays (1797). Part I. Essay I: Of Awakening the Mind

The wisdom of our ancestors.
~ Sir William Grant

He who lives wisely to himself and to his own heart, looks at the busy world through the loop-holes of retreat, and does not want to mingle in the fray.
~ William Hazlitt, Table-Talk; or, Original Essays (1821-1822). On Living to One's-self

No wise man can have a contempt for the prejudices of others; and he should even stand in a certain awe of his own, as if they were aged parents and monitors. They may in the end prove wiser than he.
~ William Hazlitt, Characteristics: in the Manner of Rochefoucault's Maxims (1823).

It is indeed astonishing with how little wisdom mankind can be governed, when that little wisdom is its own.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, Speculum Animae: Four Devotional Addresses (1911).

Like goodness and beauty, wisdom is one of the absolute values, the divine ideas.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, in Cambridge Essays on Education (1917). The Training of the Reason

The wise man is he who knows the relative values of things. In this knowledge, and in the use made of it, is summed up the whole conduct of life.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from The Church in the World (1927). The Training of the Reason

The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.
~ William Ralph (Dean) Inge, from Lay Thoughts of a Dean (1926).

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.
~ William James, The Principles of Psychology (1890). Vol. 2. Chapter XXII: Reasoning

Proverbs often seem very wise, because they are very ambiguous.
~ William (W.) Stanley Jevons, Primer of Logic (1876).

And I plumed myself upon my superior wisdom.
~ William James Lampton, from Yawps and Other Things (1900). An Enigma

Then Nature approached me, calling me by name; and he bade me take heed, and gather wisdom from all the wonders of the world.
~ William Langland, A Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman (or Visio Willelmi de Petro Ploughman; c. 1362).

[Wisdom is] the science of happiness or of the means of attaining the lasting contentment which consists in the continual achievement of a greater perfection or at least in variations of the same degree of perfection.
~ Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Discourses on Metaphysics and Monadology (1714).

He who devotes sixteen hours a day to hard study may become as wise at sixty as he thought himself at twenty.
~ Mary Wilson Little, from Reveries of a Paragrapher (1897). Man and Woman

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
~ W. Somerset Maugham, from A Writer's Notebook (1949).

Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent -- that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (1885).

Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

To become wise, one must "wish" to have certain experiences and run, as it were, into their gaping jaws. This, of course, is very dangerous; many a wise guy has been swallowed.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human. Second Sequel: The Wanderer and His Shadow (December 1879).

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
~ Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Wisdom does not come from suffering, but from suffering reflected on, accepted, assimilated.
~ William J. O'Malley, in America magazine (13 June 1992).

It is a profitable Wisdom to know when we have done enough: Much time and Pains are spared, in not flattering our selves against Probabilities.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Industry

Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment the treasurer of a wise man.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Knowledge

Reading ourselves and nature, in the dealings and conduct of men, is the truest human wisdom.
~ William Penn, Advice to His Children (1699).

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy: collect and learn them, they are notable measures and directions for human life: you have much in little; they save time and speaking; and, upon occasion, may be the fullest and safest answers.
~ William Penn, Advice to His Children (1699).

Wisdom never uses nor wants it. Cunning to Wise, is as an Ape to a Man.
~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude (1693). Part I. Shifts

One has often known many a wise word to come from a mouth reputed foolish; for that kind of madness, which uneducated and stupid people call folly, really may mean inspiration.
~ Guillaume De La Pierre

There is more wisdom in some ignorance than there is in some knowledge.
~ William S. Plumer, Commentary on Paul's Epistle to the Romans (1871). Chapter XI

All is not gold that glitters, but it is a wise child that keeps the stopper in his bottle of testing acid.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), Strictly Business: More Stories of the Four Million (1910). The Gold That Glittered

Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
~ William Sydney Porter (O. Henry), from The Four Million (1906). The Gift of the Magi

When we lack wisdom, which we always do, as much as we want breath, we are to ask it of the Spirit of wisdom, and it shall be given us.
~ William Romaine, in The Triumph of Faith (1795). Preface

My wisdom was visual and as swift as vision.
~ William Saroyan, Here Comes There Goes You Know Who (1961).

In wisdom's right hand, are length of days; and in her left hand riches and honor. Look to which hand you will, and you will find it full.
~ William Secker, from The Nonsuch Professor in His Meridian Splendor, or the Singular Actions of Sanctified Christians (1660).

As you are old and reverend, [you] should be wise.
~ William Shakespeare, King Lear. Act I, scene iv

He was a scholar, and a ripe and good one;
Exceedingly wise, fair-spoken and persuading;
Lofty and sour to them that loved him not;
But to those men that sought him sweet as summer.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VIII. Act IV, scene ii

There's not one wise man among twenty will praise himself.
~ William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing. Act V, scene ii

This fellow's wise enough to play the fool,
And to do that well craves a kind of wit.
~ William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night. Act III, scene i

Wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerily seek how to redress their harms.
~ William Shakespeare, King Henry VI, Part III. Act V, scene iv

You are full of pretty answers.
~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It. Act III, scene ii

[N]o man is wiser than another
And none knoweth much.
~ William Sharp (as Fiona MacLeod), From the Hills of Dream: Mountain Songs and Island Runes (1896). Foam of the Past. The Chant of Ardan the Pict

Wisdom is having things right in your life
and knowing why.
~ William Stafford, from Stories That Could Be True: New and Collected Poems (1977). The Little Ways That Encourage Good Fortune

Prudent people, who attain their ends, are called wise.
~ William Taylor (of Norwich), English Synonyms Discriminated (1813).

A man's wisdom, his best friend; folly, his worst enemy.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. I (1720). Miscellanea, Part III. Heads, Designed For An Essay Upon The Different Conditions Of Life And Fortune

[L]earning ... passes for wisdom among those who want both.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, in The Works of Sir William Temple, Bart., Vol. III (1814 edition). An Introduction to the History of England

Wisdom is that which makes men judge what are the best ends, and what the best means to attain them.
~ Sir William Temple, 1st Baronet, from Miscellanea, Part I (1680). An Essay Upon the Original and Nature of Government (1672)

Love is master of the wisest ... It is only fools who defy him.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, from Men's Wives (1852). Dennis Haggarty's Wife

There lived a sage in days of yore,
And he a handsome pigtail wore;
But wondered much and sorrowed more
Because it hung behind him.
~ William Makepeace Thackeray, A Tragic Story (from von Chamisso). Stanza 1

Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.
~ Aiden Wilson (A.W.) Tozer, Knowledge Of The Holy (1965). Chapter 11: The Wisdom of God

I do believe the sad alone are wise;
I do believe the wrong'd alone can know
Why lives the world, why spread the burden'd skies,
And so from torture into godship grow.
~ William Ross Wallace, from Meditations in America, and Other Poems (1851). The Chant of a Soul

Short isolated sentences were the mode in which ancient Wisdom delighted to convey its precepts, for the regulation of life and manners.
~ William Warburton, from The Principles of Natural and Revealed Religion Occasionally Opened and Explained (1753).

We can learn much from wise words, little from wisecracks, and less from wise guys.
~ William Arthur Ward

Wise are those who learn that the bottom line doesn't always have to be their top priority.
~ William Arthur Ward

To be sensible of our own defects, is the first gradation of wisdom.
~ William Watkins, from Anomaliae: Being Desultory Essays On Miscellaneous Subjects (1798). Anomaliae No. 4. Tuesday, November 14th. 1797

They see not clearliest who see all things clear.
~ William Watson, from Epigrams of Art, Life and Nature (1884). XCVI

The real fun of living wisely is that you get to be smug about it.
~ Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes (19 November 1990).

[Y]ou can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people -- and alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive.
~ William Allen White, Editorial in The Emporia Gazette (27 July 1922). To an Anxious Friend

Wisdom alone is true ambition's aim,
Wisdom the source of virtue, and of fame,
Obtain'd with labour, for mankind employ'd,
And then, when most you share it, best enjoy'd.
~ William Whitehead, On Nobility: An Epistle. To the Earl of Ashburnham (1744).

It is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.
~ William Whitelaw, quoted in The Observer (1975). Sayings of the Year

Who is the wise? Not he who from the start
With Wisdom's followers has taken part;
But he who looks in Folly's tempting eyes,
And turns away, perceiving her disguise.
~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox, from New Thought Pastels (1906). Strength

Be not wise in thine own eyes, but listen to the counsel of the 'Universal Friend'.
~ Jemima Wilkinson, in History of Jemima Wilkinson: A Preacheress Of The Eighteenth Century; Containing An Authentic Narrative Of Her Life And Character, And Of The Rise, Progress And Conclusion Of Her Ministry (1821).

Wisdom isn't gained by time, it's earned through fire and tears.
~ Don Williams, Jr., Reflections of a Wayward Soul (2004). Barefeet, Youth, and an Old Pair of Shoes

Wisdom sits alone
Topmost in Heaven.
~ Nathaniel Parker (N.P.) Willis, from Poem delivered before the Society of United Brothers at Brown University, with Other Poems (1831). The Scholar of Thebet Ben Khorat

We are drowning in information, while starving for wisdom. The world henceforth will be run by synthesizers, people able to put together the right information at the right time, think critically about it, and make important choices wisely.
~ Edward Osborne (E.O.) Wilson, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998).

Sometimes in our lives we all have pain
We all have sorrow
But if we are wise
We know that there's always tomorrow.
~ Bill Withers, in Still Bill (1972 album). Lean On Me

And he is oft the wisest man
Who is not wise at all.
~ William Wordsworth, from Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, Vol. 2 (1800). The Oak and the Broom

Type of the wise who soar but never roam;
True to the kindred points of heaven and home.
~ William Wordsworth, To a Skylark. Stanza 2 (Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky, 1827)

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop
Than when we soar.
~ William Wordsworth, The Excursion (1814). Book III: Despondency

If suffering brings wisdom, I would wish to be less wise.
~ William Butler Yeats

It is but wisdom to do willingly
What has to be.
~ William Butler Yeats, Deirdre (1906 play).

There is no wisdom without indolence.
~ William Butler Yeats, in Memoirs. Autobiography -- First Draft Journal (1972).

They understood that wisdom comes of beggary.
~ William Butler Yeats, from The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933). The Seven Sages

Well, to see rightly is the whole of wisdom, whatever dream be with us.
~ William Butler Yeats, The Hour-Glass (1912 version).