Wisdom Quotes

The great proof of madness is the disproportion of one's designs to one's means.

There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

The keys of a fortress are always well worth the retirement of the garrison when it is resolved to yield only on those conditions. On this principle it is always wiser to grant an honorable capitulation to a garrison which has made a vigorous resistance than to risk an assault.

Better to have a known enemy than a forced ally.

The effect of discussions, making a show of talent, and calling councils of war will be what the effect of these things has been in every age: they will end in the adoption of the most pusillanimous or (if the expression be preferred) the most prudent measures, which in war are almost uniformly the worst that can be adopted.True wisdom, so far as a general is concerned, consists in energetic determination.

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish there was less immaturity in political thinking.

A Reactionary is a somnambulist walking backwards.

We Americans of today, together with our allies, are passing through a period of supreme test. It is a test of our courage - of our resolve - of our wisdom - our essential democracy.

Wise and prudent men - intelligent conservatives - have long known that in a changing world worthy institutions can be conserved only by adjusting them to the changing time.

For charity literally translated from the original means love, the love that understands, that does not merely share the wealth of the giver, but in true sympathy and wisdom helps men to help themselves.

Quitting is leading too.

Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues - of my comrades in the movement - who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.

Fools multiply when wise men are silent.

The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad.

It never hurts to think too highly of a person; often they become ennobled and act better because of it.

The more informed you are, the less arrogant and aggressive you are.

We must nurture tolerance, collective wisdom, and democracy.

The anchor of all my dreams is the collective wisdom of mankind as a whole.

If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends. Somewhere somebody must have a little sense, and that's the strong person.

There will come a time, in many instances, when the person who hates you most, the person who has misused you most, the person who has gossiped about you most, the person who has spread false rumors about you most, there will come a time when you will have an opportunity to defeat that person. It might be in terms of a recommendation for a job; it might be in terms of helping that person to make some move in life. That's the time you must not do it.