Wisdom
Wisdom and the path of understanding:
A world guided by wisdom is the proverbial heaven on earth.
– Proverb
The only medicine for suffering, crime, and all the other woes of mankind, is wisdom.
– Thomas Huxley
Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living, the other helps you make a life.
– Sandra Carey
Don’t gain the gold and lose your soul. Wisdom is better than silver and gold
– Bob Marley
No man was ever wise by chance.
– Seneca
The path of wisdom is a lifelong journey.
– Unknown.
I am still learning
– Michelangelo, at age 87
If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.
― Marcus Aurelius
We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us.
– Proust
Develop a passion for learning. If you do, you will never cease to grow.
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.
– Henry Ford
Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death
– Einstein
Everyone wants to be on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs in the challenge of climbing it.
― Andy Rooney
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
– Ernest Hemingway
The only person you should aim to be wiser than is the person you were yesterday
– A Godsons Truth
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that’s your own self.
– Aldous Huxley
Years teach us more than books.
– Berthold Auerbach
Teachers open the door… You enter by yourself.
– Chinese Proverb
Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.
– Carl Jung
One does not become enlightened by imaging figures of light. But by making the darkness, conscious.
– Carl Jung
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
– Albert Einstein
Understand what you are and what the world is, then only fulfillment will come.
– Paul Brunton
The mind is everything. What you think you become
– Buddha
Know Thyself
– Ancient Greek aphorism
Snippets of wisdom:
The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.
– William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, Act 5 scene 1
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
– Socrates
He who asks a question is a fool for a minute; he who does not remains a fool forever.
– Famous Chinese Proverb
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
– Marcus Aurelius
We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
– Unknown
Opinions are like assholes. Everybody’s got one and everyone thinks everyone else’s stinks.
– Unknown
It is easier to be wise for others than for ourselves 🙂
– Francois De La Rochefoucauld
A wise man learns by the mistakes of others, a fool by his own.
– Latin Proverb
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
– J. Robert Oppenheimer
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
– Epictetus
The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough
– Einstein
The ability to simplify means to eliminate the unnecessary so that the necessary may speak.
– Hans Hofmann
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
– Leonardo da Vinci
Take risks. If you win – you will be happy. If you lose you will be wise.
– Anomymous
Moderation in all things
– Terence
One should treat others as one would like others to treat oneself.
– Golden Rule
Don’t judge another until you’ve walked a mile in their shoes?
– Proverb
Do not take life too seriously, you will never get out of it alive
– Elbert Hubbard
Don’t explain your philosophy – Embody it.
– Epictetus
Meet situations where they are and not where we want them to be
– Unknown
Humour:
Don’t take life too seriously – you will never get out alive
– Elbert Hubbard
A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures for anything
– Irish proverb
All generalisations are false. Including this one
– Mark Twain
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.
– Thomas Szasz
When people say “life is short”. What the hell??? Life is the longest damn thing anyone ever does!!! What can you do thats longer?
– Unknown
Life is short. Smile while you still have teeth
– Unknown
Don’t think of yourself as an ugly person. Think of yourself as a beautiful monkey!
– Unknown
All I want is the chance to prove that money can’t buy happiness.
– Spike Milligan
Wisdom through experience:
It’s one thing to hear wise words, but to fully understand something you have to relate it to experience.
– A Godsons truth
You can’t beat experience.
– Kenny Hodgson
The core of mans spirit comes from new experiences.
– Christopher MCandles
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
– Søren Kierkegaard
The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.
– Saint Augustine
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
– Marcel Proust
Thoughts on life:
Life is like a roller coaster. It has it’s ups and downs. But it’s your choice to scream & curse or enjoy the most exhilarating ride of your life.
– Anoymous
Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.
– Dennis P. Kimbro
We see things not as they are, but as we are.
– H. M. Tomlinson
Life is what you make of it
– Proverb
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play it is free will.
– Jawaharal Nehru
A good life consists not in holding good cards but in playing those you hold well.
– Josh Billings
It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with. But what’s life to a lichen? Yet its impulse to exist, to be , is every bit as strong as ours-arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don’t. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment’s additions existence. Life, in short just wants to be.
– Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything
Live & learn:
Forget not your past, for in the future it may help you grow.
– J M Barrie.
The only mistake in life is the lesson not learned
– Einstein
Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn.
– Unknown
Live & Learn from your experiences. If you do that – then every experience, even the so-called negative, can be counted as beneficial to making you a wiser, stronger, happier person.
– Stuart Hodgson
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.
– Pablo Picasso
A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor
– Unknown
Success in the affairs of life often serves to hide one’s abilities, whereas adversity frequently gives one an opportunity to discover them.
– Horace
What is defeat? Nothing but education. Nothing but the first step to something better.
– Unknown
Do not brood over your past mistakes and failures as this will only fill your mind with grief, regret and depression. Simply do not repeat them in the future.
– Swami Sivanda
The definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
– Einstein
The difference between school and life? In school, you’re taught a lesson and then given a test. In life, you’re given a test that teaches you a lesson.
– Tom Bodett
Those who do not learn from a difficult situations are doomed to repeat them.
– Unknown
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
– Einstein
There is no such thing as failure if you learn from it.
– American proverb
Many of life’s failures are experienced by people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
– Thomas Edison
Surmounted difficulties not only teach, but hearten us in our future struggles.
– James Sharp
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
– Samuel Smiles
One often learns more from ten days of agony than from ten years of contentment.
– Shain, Merle
When you are inside your comfort zone, you may be outside of the enhancement zone.
– Unknown
The basic difference between an ordinary man and a warrior is that a warrior takes everything as a challenge while an ordinary man takes everything as a blessing or a curse.
– Carlos Castaneda
If it doesn’t challenge you it won’t change you. We only expand by demand. Use every challenge as an opportunity to stretch yourself and become better.
– Zig Ziglar
We don’t learn and grow when things are easy, we grow when we face challenges.
– Unknown
Coping with loss:
The pain that we feel when soneon dies, is the flip side of love. It means that we were fortunate to have had a very special person in our lives, and that at least is something to be grateful for.
– Stuart Hodgson
Don’t cry because it’s over – smile because it happened.
– Unknown
When people die – part of them lives on in those they made a good impression on.
– Unknown
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.
– Walter Anderson
I never said I wanted a ‘happy’ life but an interesting one. From separation and loss, I have learned a lot. I have become strong and resilient, as is the case of almost every human being exposed to life and to the world. We don’t even know how strong we are until we are forced to bring that hidden strength forward.
– Isabel Allende
Overcoming challenging times:
Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired and success achieved.
– Helen Keller
Sometimes you have to get knocked down lower than you’ve ever been, to stand up taller than you than you ever were.
– Unknown
The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.
– Elisabeth Kübler-Ros
The marvelous richness of human experience would lose something of rewarding joy if there were no limitations to overcome. The hilltop hour would not be half so wonderful if there were no dark valleys to traverse.
– Helen Keller
The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it.
– Epicurus
It’s not the load that breaks you down, it’s the way you carry it.
– Lena Horne
You’re going to have times when you’re absolutely broken — physically and mentally and emotionally. I’m warning you now, this will happen. But hang on in there. The pain will not last for ever, but the disappointment if you quit will….it’s all about persistence….You’ve just got to be bloody-minded and hang on in there. This is a lesson in life. Just don’t give up.
– Bear Grylls
Good fortune and bad are equally necessary to man, to fit him to meet the contingencies of this life.
– French Proverb
If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.
– Dolly Parton
The success of our lives and our future depends on our motivation and determination or self-confidence. Through difficult experiences, life sometimes becomes more meaningful. If you look at people who, from the beginning of their lives, have had everything, you may see that when small things happen they soon lose hope or grow irritated. Others have developed stronger mental attitudes as a result of their hardships. I think the person who has had more experience of hardships can stand more firmly in the face of problems than the person who has never experienced suffering. From this angle then, some suffering can be a good lesson for life.
– Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama
Difficulties strengthen the mind, as well as labor does the body.
– Seneca
Fractures well cured make us more strong.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
All sunshine and no rain makes a desert.
– Arabian Proverb
That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Let your past make you better, not bitter
– Anoymous
Use your energy to solve problems rather than complain about them.
– Stuart Hodgson
Trying times are not the times to stop trying.
– Ray Owen
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
– Carl Jung
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
– Martin Luther King Jr.
Misfortunes often sharpen the genius.
– Ovid
Be master of your petty annoyances and conserve your energies for the big, worthwhile things. It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out – it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.
– Robert Service
When I hear somebody sigh, “Life is hard,” I am always tempted to ask, “Compared to what?”
– Anoymous
Sometimes it takes the bad times to allow us to appreciate the good times.
– Stuart Hodgson
It’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get back up.
– Vince Lombardi
What is defeat? Nothing but education; nothing but the first steps to something better.
– Proverb
A wise man adapts himself to circumstances as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it.
– Chinese Proverb
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
– Winston Churchill
There is no failure except in no longer trying
– Elbert Hubbard
Don’t let a bad day make you feel like your whole life is bad.
– Anoymous
When you’re in an ill mood, learn to pass it off as simply that: an unavoidable human condition that will pass with time, if you leave it alone. A low mood is not the time to analyze your life. To do so is emotional suicide. If you have a legitimate problem, it will still be there when your state of mind improves. The trick is to be grateful for our good moods and graceful in our low moods – not taking them too seriously. The next time you feel low, for whatever reason, remind yourself ‘This too shall pass’. It will.
– Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama
Depression (feeling low over a long period of time) is inner biofeedback, signaling you that something isn’t right within your system. Use the signal of depression to let you know it’s time to change
– Dr. Joyce Brothers
Keep on going and the chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something by doing nothing.
– Charles F. Kettering
As long as you keep thinking as you’ve been thinking you’ll keep feeling as you’ve been feeling, doing as you’ve been doing, and getting what you’ve been getting. Everything you do to improve the quality of your thoughts improves the quality of your life.
– Marcia Grad
Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own thoughts unguarded.
– BUDDHISM : Dhammapada 3
The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another
– William James
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
– Robert Frost
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will shine again.
– Victor Hugo
When life gives you a hundred reasons to cry, show life that you have a thousand reasons to smile.
– Unknown
You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.
– Ralph Blum
Sometimes new beginnings are disguised as painful endings
– Lao Tzu
The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.
– Chinese Proverb
If you change nothing, nothing will change
– Unknown
The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.
– Lao Tzu
Attachment and suffering:
Attachment is the root of suffering.
– Pali canon
Detachment is not that you should own nothing, but that nothing should own you.
– Ali ibn abi Talib
Non-attachment comes from the wisdom that nothing is truly separate.
– Unknown
Let go of your attachment to being right, and suddenly your mind is more open. You’re able to benefit from the unique viewpoints of others, without being crippled by your own judgment.
– Ralph Marston
Good? Bad? Who knows…
There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
– Shakespeare
‘Good’ & ‘bad’ are just concepts in the minds of human beings.
– A Godsons Truth
In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.
– Buddha
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them
– Epictetus
There are no failures – just experiences and your reactions to them.
– Tom Krause
Religion:
Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The confidence people have in their beliefs is not a measure of the quality of evidence, but of the coherence of the story that the mind has managed to construct
– Daniel Kahneman
Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.
– Steve Jobs
People would do better to ask unanswerable questions of science, than accept the unquestionable answers of religion.
– Thom Menzies
If a religious person had to supply any kind of tangeable evidence to prove the existence of ‘their’ god, their hole belief structure would evaporate in a poof of logic.
– Unknown
We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further.
– Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
It’s important to have morals, but you don’t need religion to be moralistic.
– A Godsons Truth
Not being religious shouldn’t stop you from having a tremendous sense of awe & appreciation for life and the universe. Not being religious shouldn’t stop you from wanting to do good by those you share our planet with. Not being religious shouldn’t stop you from learning important teachings of the world’s sacred texts. Not being religious is simply a matter of not being trapped by dogma, choosing to look at the evidence – and make up your own mind what to believe and not believe.
– A Godsons Truth
Religious wars are basically people killing each other over who has the better imaginary friend.
– Napoleon Bonaparte
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
– Pascal
Many of the world’s wickedest acts have been committed in the name of religion or ‘God’
– Anoymous
I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator.
– Adolf Hitler
God told me to end the tyranny in Iraq
– George W Bush
We will remain, God willing, a curse chasing the Americans and their agents, following them outside and inside their countries.
– Al-Qaida
Never trust anyone who claims to speak in the name of God, more often than not it’s used as a means of coercion or pursuasion
– Anoymous
Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.
– Marcus Aurelius
Jesus wasn’t a Christian. Buddha wasn’t a buddhist. There is no doubt these sort of figures who are idolised in religions were no doubt very wise & inspirational people – but it’s those that live after who form the religions, write the religious texts & promote the teachings – and it’s often like chinese whispers – with original insights being altered to suit the prevailing cultural context and rulers of the time.
– Anoymous
The word religion comes from the Latin word “religare” – meaning ‘to bind fast, to join, to connect’ – but to many of us it seems most religions now seem to do the opposite and infact separate us.
– Uknown
National boundaries are not evident when we view the Earth from space. Fanatical ethnic or religious or national chauvinisms are a little difficult to maintain when we see our planet as a fragile blue crescent fading to become an inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars.
– Carl Sagan
I believe in God, only I spell it Nature.
– Frank Lloyd Wright
Beyond religious dogma to a deeper meaning:
Truth is One and the learned call It by many names
– Rig Veda
Truth has many aspects. Infinite truth has infinite expression. Though the sages speak in different ways, they express One and the same truth. The ignorant say, “what I believe is true, others are wrong”. It is because of this attitude that there have been doubts and misunderstandings about God. It is this attitude that causes disputes among men. But all doubts vanish when one masters the Self and finds peace by realizing the heart of the Truth.
– A passage from the Srimad Bhagavatan 11.5
Jesus said: “I am a son of God,” well there’s the whole [Christian] thing in a nutshell. If you read the King James Bible… You will see in italics, in front of the words “son of God,” the “son of God.” Most people think the italics are for emphasis. They’re not. The italics indicate words interpolated by the translators. You will not find that in the Greek. In the Greek it says, A son of God. It seems to me here perfectly plain. That Jesus has got it in the back of his mind that this isn’t something peculiar to himself. So when he says, “I am the Way, no Man comes to the Father but by me.” This “I am” this “Me” is the divine in all of us. We are ALL sons of, or of the nature of God. Manifestations of the divine. This discovery is the gospel. That is the good news. But this has been perpetually repressed throughout the history of Western religion…
– Alan Watts
The kingdom of God is within man, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men
– St. luke
The kingdom of God is within.
– CHRISTIANITY : Luke 17.20-1
His disciples said to him “When will the kingdom come?” Jesus said “it will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying ‘here it is’ or ‘there it is’. Rather the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth and men do not see it.”
– CHRISTIANITY : Gospel of Thomas 111
Where one sees nothing but the One, hears nothing but the One – there is the Infinite. Where one sees another, hears another, knows another – there is the finite. The Infinite is immortal, the finite is mortal. It is written, He who has realized eternal Truth does not see death, nor illness, nor pain; he sees everything as the Self, and obtains all.
– HINDUISM: Chandogya Upanishad 7.23 & 7.27
Everybody is fundamentally, the ultimate reality. Not God in the political kingly sense, but God in the sense of being the self – the deep down basic whatever there is. And you’re all that… only you’re pretending you’re not.
– Alan Watts
We are the cosmos made conscious and life is the means by which the universe understands itself. For me, our true significance lies in our ability to understand and explore this beautiful universe.
– Brian Cox
Connectedness:
The wise stand out because they see themselves as part of the Whole.
– TAOISM: Tao Te Ching 22
I and All Things in the Universe Are One
– TAOISM : Chuang-Tzu
You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.
– Alan Watts
All life is part of a complex relationship in which each is dependent upon the others, taking from, giving to and living with all the rest.
– Yves Cousteau
The Universe is a cosmic dance of energy and matter, engaged in ceaseless creation, destruction, and evolution. We are all part of that dance.
– Paul Harrison
Your deepest roots are in nature. No matter who you are, where you live, or what kind of life you lead, you remain irrevocably linked with everything else.
– Charles Cook
When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world.
– John Muir
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean, in a drop.
– Rumi
We are all part of something greater, just as each wave is part of the ocean. Catch life as it flows.
– Zen proverb
After all, what nobler thought can one cherish than that the universe lives within us all?
– Neil deGrasse Tyson
If the doors of perception were cleansed – everything would appear as it is: infinite
– Aldous Huxley
If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.
– Nikola Tesla
You are the universe, expressing itself as a human for a little while.
– Eckhart Tolle
Reality:
The nature of reality is pure subjective fantasy.
– Noel Gallagher
I know I’m not seeing things as they are, I’m seeing things as I am
– Laurel Lee
OUR life is the creation of OUR mind.
– Buddha
Let it be:
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
– Max Ehrmann
If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.
– Zen Proverb
It is, what it is
– Proverb