Philosophy & Thought: Wisdom Quotes

"We read on the foreheads of those who are surrounded by a foolish luxury, that fortune sells what she is thought to give"

Jean de La Fontaine, Poet

"Everyone has his faults which he continually repeats: neither fear nor shame can cure them"

Jean de La Fontaine, Poet

"Chaos is rejecting all you have learned, chaos is being yourself"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"Everyone believes very easily whatever they fear or desire"

Jean de La Fontaine, Poet

"There is nothing useless to men of sense"

Jean de La Fontaine, Poet

"One often has need of one, inferior to himself"

Jean de La Fontaine, Poet

"Negation is the mind's first freedom, yet a negative habit is fruitful only so long as we exert ourselves to overcome it, adapt it to our needs; once acquired it can imprison us"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"A golden rule: to leave an incomplete image of oneself"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"One hardly saves a world without ruling it"

Emile M. Cioran, Philosopher

"No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master"

Hunter S. Thompson, Journalist

"When things are steep, remember to stay level-headed"

Horace, Poet

"If a man's fortune does not fit him, it is like the shoe in the story; if too large, it trips him up, if too small, it pinches him"

Horace, Poet

"Whatever advice you give, be short"

Horace, Poet

"The envious man grows lean at the success of his neighbor"

Horace, Poet

"Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace"

Horace, Poet

"One wanders to the left, another to the right. Both are equally in error, but, are seduced by different delusions"

Horace, Poet

"The historian must have some conception of how men who are not historians behave. Otherwise he will move in a world of the dead. He can only gain that conception through personal experience, and he can only use his personal experiences when he is a genius"

E. M. Forster, Novelist

"The four characteristics of humanism are curiosity, a free mind, belief in good taste, and belief in the human race"

E. M. Forster, Novelist

"Choose a subject equal to your abilities; think carefully what your shoulders may refuse, and what they are capable of bearing"

Horace, Poet

"A word once uttered can never be recalled"

Horace, Poet

"It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ"

W. H. Auden, Poet

"The descent to the infernal regions is easy enough, but to retrace one's steps and reach the air above, there's the rub"

Virgil, Writer

"Hug the shore; let others try the deep"

Virgil, Writer

"Perhaps there is only one cardinal sin: impatience. Because of impatience we were driven out of Paradise, because of impatience we cannot return"

W. H. Auden, Poet

"Every autobiography is concerned with two characters, a Don Quixote, the Ego, and a Sancho Panza, the Self"

W. H. Auden, Poet

"Therefore trust to thy heart, and to what the world calls illusions"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"Method is more important than strength, when you wish to control your enemies. By dropping golden beads near a snake, a crow once managed to have a passer-by kill the snake for the beads"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"The greatest firmness is the greatest mercy"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"However, things may seem, no evil thing is success, and no good thing is failure"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"A thought often makes us hotter than a fire"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"Trust one who has tried"

Virgil, Writer

"Trust not too much to appearances"

Virgil, Writer

"None but himself can be his parallel"

Virgil, Writer

"Mind moves matter"

Virgil, Writer

"Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things"

Virgil, Writer

"The strength of criticism lies in the weakness of the thing criticized"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"Not in the shouts and plaudits of the throng, but in ourselves, are triumph and defeat"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"Intelligence and courtesy not always are combined; often in a wooden house a golden room we find"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"In this world, a man must either be anvil or hammer"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Poet

"We reproach people for talking about themselves; but it is the subject they treat best"

Anatole France, Novelist

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