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Being Wise Quotes

Browse 337 quotes about Being Wise.

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Being Wise Quotes

“We all know people who are smart. But that doesn’t mean they are wise. Understanding and wisdom come from surviving the pitfalls of life, thriving in life, having wide and deep contact with other people. Out of your own moments of suffering, struggle, friendship, intimacy, and joy comes a compassionate awareness of how other people feel—their frailty, their confusion, and their courage. The wise are those who have lived full, varied lives, and reflected deeply on what they’ve been through.”

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Book:How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen
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“Mark, how the ready hands of Death prepare: His bow is bent, and he hath notch'd his dart; He aims, he levels at thy slumb'ring heart: The wound is posting, O be wise, beware.”

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Book:Emblems, divine and moral; The school of the heart [really by C. Harvey] and Hieroglyphies of the life of man
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“If you notice an unconscious fantasy coming up within you, you would be wise not to interpret it at once. Do not say that you know what it is and force it into consciousness. Just let it live with you, leaving it in the half-dark, carry it with you and watch where it is going or what it is driving at.”

IfsKnowsWould BeForceDarkHalfConsciousnessWatchesFantasyWiseLeavingDrivingUnconsciousWithin YouBeing Wise
Book:The Interpretation of Fairy Tales: Revised Edition
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“There is no man ... however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man -- so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise -- unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded.”

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Book:In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower: In Search of Lost Time
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“No man of honor, as the word is usually understood, did ever pretend that his honor obliged him to be chaste or temperate, to pay his creditors, to be useful to his country, to do good to mankind, to endeavor to be wise or learned, to regard his word, his promise, or his oath.”

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Book:The works of Jonathan Swift, D.D.: with copious notes and additions and a memoir of the author
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“If thy desire to raise thy fortunes encourage thy delights to the casts of fortune, be wise betimes, lest thou repent too late; what thou gettest, thou gainest by abused providence; what thou losest, thou losest by abused patience; what thou winnest is prodigally spent; what thou losest is prodigally lost; it is an evil trade that prodigally drives; and a bad voyage where the pilot is blind.”

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Book:Enchiridon: containing institutions divine, moral
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“If thou seest anything in thyself which may make thee proud, look a little further and thou shalt find enough to humble thee; if thou be wise, view the peacock's feathers with his feet, and weigh thy best parts with thy imperfections.”

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Book:Enchiridion Institutions, Essays and Maxims, political, moral & divine. Divided into four centuries. By Francis Quarles
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“The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”

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Author:Isaac Asimov
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“I endeavor to drink deep of philosophy, and to be wise when I cannot be merry, easy when I cannot be glad, content with what cannot be mended, and patient where there is no redress. The mighty can do no more, and the wise seldom do as much. ... I am resolved to make the best of all circumstances around me, that this short life may not be half lost in pains ... Between the periods of birth and burial, I would fain insert a little happiness, a little pleasure, a little peace: to-day is ours, yesterday is past, and to-morrow may never come.”

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Author:Elizabeth Montagu
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“Perhaps one would be wise when young even to avoid thinking of oneself as a writer - for there's something a little stopped and satisfied, too healthy, in that. Better to think of writing, of what one does as an activity, rather than an identity - to write, I write; we write; to keep the calling a verb rather than a noun; to keep working at the thing, at all hours, in all places, so that your life does not become a pose, a pornography of wishing.”

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Author:Lorrie Moore
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“As a man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are, so the sceptic, in a vain attempt to be wise beyond what is permitted to man, plunges into a darkness more deplorable, and a blindness more incurable than that of the common herd, whom he despises, and would fain instruct.”

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Book:Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words : Addressed to Those who Think
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