Best Wise Man Quotes & Sayings

According to Plato, the wise man is the best ruler precisely because he doesn't care unduly about political honor and power, much less about bodily pleasures. He is too absorbed in the pleasures of learning to be tempted by the lesser pleasures of glory, wealth, and hedonism. His rule is therefore benevolent and unmarred by self-interest, because the passions which in lesser men would be absorbed in material goods and sensual pleasures are sluiced off into the pleasures of the mind. The — Waller R Newell

The best books for a man are not always those which the wise recommend, but often those which meet the peculiar wants, the natural thirst of his mind, and therefore awaken interest and rivet thought. — William Ellery Channing

I do not mean to expose my ideas to ingenious ridicule by maintaining that everything happens to every man for the best; but I will contend, that he who makes the best use of it, fulfills the part of a wise and good man. — Richard Cumberland

My apologies, but it is not youe duty to do what the people want."
Elend blinked. "You sound like Tindwyl."
"I have known few people as wise as she, Your Majesty," Sazed said, glancing at her.
"Well, I disagree with both of you," Elend said. "A ruler should only lead by the consent of the people he rules."
"I do not disagree with that, Your Majesty," Sazed said. "Or, at least, I do believe in the theory of it. Regardless, I still do not believe that your duty is to do as the people wish. Your duty is to lead as best you can, following the dictates of your conscience. You must be true, Your Majesty, to the man you wish to become. If that man is not whom the people wish to have lead them, then they will choose somebody else."
[...]
"Trying to guess what people wish of you will only lead to chaos, I think," Sazed said. "You cannot please them all, Elend Venture. — Brandon Sanderson

To comprehend a man's life, it is necessary to know not merely what he does but also what he purposely leaves undone. There is a limit to the work that can be got out of a human body or a human brain, and he is a wise man who wastes no energy on pursuits for which he is not fitted; and he is till wiser who, from among the things that he can do well, chooses and resolutely follows the best. — John Hall Gladstone

A wise man has doubts even in his best moments. Real truth is always accompanied by hesitations. If I could not hesitate, I could not believe. — Henry David Thoreau

In matters of conscience that is the best sense which every wise man takes in before he hath sullied his understanding with the designs of sophisters and interested persons. — Jeremy Taylor

He will be the best Christian who has Christ for his Master, and truly follows Him. Some are disciples of the church, others are disciples of the minister, and a third sort are disciples of their own thoughts; he is the wise man who sits at Jesus' feet and learns of Him, with the resolve to follow His teaching and imitate His example. He who tries to learn of Jesus Himself, taking the very words from the Lord's own lips, binding himself to believe whatsoever the Lord hath taught and to do whatsoever He hath commanded-he I say, is the stable Christian. — Charles Spurgeon

I flipped open to read the marked passage in Daily Strength: "It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are, is God's providential arrangement - God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made out of them." - F. W. Robertson — Will Schwalbe

In my many years as a Representative in Congress it is my observation that the district that is best represented is the district that is wise enough to select a man of energy, intelligence, and integrity and reelects him year after year. A man of this type and character serves more efficiently and effectively the longer he is returned by his people. — Sam Rayburn

For a wise man, I have been told, once said, 'Gratitude is best and most effective when it does not evaporate in empty phrases.' But alas, my lady, I am but a mass of empty phrases, it would seem. — Isaac Asimov

To be loved and chosen by a good man is the best and sweetest thing which can happen to a woman; and I sincerely hope and wait for it, and wise to prepare for it; so that when the happy time comes, you may feel ready for the duties and worthy of the joy. — Louisa May Alcott

I can't even begin to describe how I miss him. He always supported me in everything I did. He was a very wise man and I realised at an early age I could learn a lot from him. He always gave me the right answer. But above all he was a very easy-going guy and all he wanted was to be my best friend. I'm an only child and so he shared everything with me. Of course he was very young to die and I was very young to lose a father. But there was nothing left unsaid between us. — Dhani Harrison

Forest is the best port of the wise man! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

The whole character and fortune of the individual are affected by the least inequalities in the culture of the understanding; for example, in the perception of differences. Therefore is Space, and therefore Time, that man may know that things are not huddled and lumped, but sundered and individual. A bell and a plough have each their use, and neither can do the office of the other. Water is good to drink, coal to burn, wool to wear; but wool cannot be drunk, nor water spun, nor coal eaten. The wise man shows his wisdom in separation, in gradation, and his scale of creatures and of merits is as wide as nature. The foolish have no range in their scale, but suppose every man is as every other man. What is not good they call the worst, and what is not hateful, they call the best. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

Far best is he who is himself all-wise, and he, too, good who listens to wise words; But whoso is not wise or lays to hear another's wisdom is a useless man. — Hesiod

IN GREAT FAMILIES, WHEN an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. The more the case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, — Charles Dickens

You know who you are, he said-
that intimidates boys but oneday a man will come along and value that exact part in you.

- Wise words from my best friend. — Nikki Rowe

That man is best who sees the truth himself. Good too is he who listens to wise counsel. But who is neither wise himself nor willing to ponder wisdom is not worth a straw. — Hesiod

A wise man once said that the best definition of insanity was performing the same action over and over again, expecting different results."
Father Peter stopped smiling. "The same could be said of you. What makes you so sure you're right? And so sure I'm wrong?"
"The difference is that I made a mistake once, out of ignorance," Tim said. "Everything I've done since then has been to try to make amends."
"To earn forgiveness."
"To protect the innocents." Tim smiled, "And yes, to earn forgiveness. — Robert J. Wiersema

God cannot be referred to as 'good,' 'better,' or 'best' because He is above all things. If a man says that God is wise, the man is lying because anything that is wise can become wiser. Anything that a man might say about God is incorrect ... The best a man can do is to remain silent ... The true master knows that if he had a God he could understand, he would never hold Him to be God. — Andrew Davidson

A Note from Alan
Out of the many memorable lines and quotes I have heard from my dad through the years, the one that always seems to stand out the most is "Son, don't ever tell people how good or great you are at something; let them tell you." For a man who has achieved his own level of greatness in the eyes of so many, those words were both prophetic and wise. To be the best at anything, one has to have a lot of confidence and a certain amount of ego and drive. But one must also have humility to make a life-changing impact on people. I realize now that that is what Dad was teaching me all those years ago. Of course, to become a legend, one that other people admire and want to emulate, you also have to add faith and dedication to what you love. A good woman doesn't hurt either. — Phil Robertson

On the other hand, we denounce with righteous indignation and dislike men who are so beguiled and demoralized by the charms of pleasure of the moment, so blinded by desire, that they cannot foresee the pain and trouble that are bound to ensue; and equal blame belongs to those who fail in their duty through weakness of will, which is the same as saying through shrinking from toil and pain. These cases are perfectly simple and easy to distinguish. In a free hour, when our power of choice is untrammelled and when nothing prevents our being able to do what we like best, every pleasure is to be welcomed and every pain avoided. But in certain circumstances and owing to the claims of duty or the obligations of business it will frequently occur that pleasures have to be repudiated and annoyances accepted. The wise man therefore always holds in these matters to this principle of selection: he rejects pleasures to secure other greater pleasures, or else he endures pains to avoid worse pains. — Robert Kirkman

Why were the flowers born so beautiful and yet so hapless? Insects can sting, and even the meekest of beasts will fight when brought to bay. The birds whose plumage is sought to deck some bonnet can fly from its pursuer, the furred animal whose coat you covet for your own may hide at your approach. Alas! The only flower known to have wings is the butterfly; all others stand helpless before the destroyer. If they shriek in their death agony their cry never reaches our hardened ears. We are ever brutal to those who love and serve us in silence, but the time may come when, for our cruelty, we shall be deserted by these best friends of ours. Have you not noticed that the wild flowers are becoming scarcer every year? It may be that their wise men have told them to depart till man becomes more human. Perhaps they have migrated to heaven. Much may be said in favor of him who — Okakura Kakuzo

Love is the divine Mother's arms; when those arms are spread, every soul falls into them.
The Sufis of all ages have been known for their beautiful personality. It does not mean that among them there have not been people with great powers, wonderful powers and wisdom. But beyond all that, what is most known of the Sufis is the human side of their nature: that tact which attuned them to wise and foolish, to poor and rich, to strong and weak
to all. They met everyone on his own plane, they spoke to everyone in his own language. What did Jesus teach when he said to the fishermen, 'Come hither, I will make you fishers of men?' It did not mean, 'I will teach you ways by which you get the best of man.' It only meant: your tact, your sympathy will spread its arms before every soul who comes, as mother's arms are spread out for her little ones. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

The man who is truly good and wise will bear with dignity whatever fortune sends, and will always make the best of his circumstances. — Aristotle.

Late one night, during a toss-and-turn fretful sleep, I pondered my crisis. No solutions were on the horizon. I, again, wasted my psychic energy with prayer. Nothing. No angel on a white cloud. No rainbow's pot of gold. No way to control the people I loved. As I rolled over and put the pillow over my head attempting to block all that was negative, I silently screamed for rescue. Then, in a far away and distinct part of my brain, a small voice said, "You have to do this on your own."

I thought, "Was that the best You can do?" This god, to whom I was desperately sending burnt offerings of my own humiliation, couldn't send an avenging angel or a wise man imparting wisdom? All You can give me is this feeble message of abandonment? At that moment, I quit believing in that god. — David W. Earle

Dr. Michael Gurian said it best: "Every time you raise a loving, wise, and responsible man, you have created a better world for women. Women [today] are having to bond to half-men, with boys who were not fully raised to manhood, don't know how to bond, don't know what their responsibilities are to humanity, and don't have a strong sense of service."5 Today's fathers have an opportunity to change that. — James C. Dobson

Only the wise know just where predestination ends and free will begins. Meanwhile, you must keep on doing your best, according to your own clearest understanding. you must long for freedom as the drowning man longs for air. Without sincere longing, you will never find God. — Paramahansa Yogananda

A wise old man taught me that diplomacy is the velvet glove that cloaks the fist of power. Persuasion, not force, works best and lasts longest. — Robin Hobb

The best fights are the ones you don't have, a wise man once said to me. — Lee Child

Political power intoxicates the best hearts. No man is wise enough, nor good enough, to be trusted with much political power. — Hans F. Sennholz

You know, I met a wise man centuries ago in China who said to me, 'He who lets fear rule him, has fear for a master. (Acheron)
Confucius? (Talon)
No, Minh-Quan. He was a fisherman who used to sell what I'm told was the best zong zi ever made. (Acheron) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

A wise man is superior to any insults which can be put upon him, and the best reply to unseemly behavior is patience and moderation. — Moliere

It is not by regretting what is irreparable that true work is to be done, but by making the best of what we are. It is not by complaining that we have not the right tools, but by using well the tools we have. What we are, and where we are is God's providential arrangement - God's doing, though it may be man's misdoing; and the manly and the wise way is to look your disadvantages in the face, and see what can be made our of them. — Will Schwalbe

The best man, then, must legislate, and laws must be passed, but these laws will have no authority when they miss the mark, though in all other cases retaining their authority. But when the law cannot determine a point at all, or not well, should the one best man or should all decide? According to our present practice assemblies meet, sit in judgment, deliberate, and decide, and their judgments an relate to individual cases. Now any member of the assembly, taken separately, is certainly inferior to the wise man. But the state is made up of many individuals. And as a feast to which all the guests contribute is better than a banquet furnished by a single man, so a multitude is a better judge of many things than any individual. — Aristotle.

To understand reality is not the same as to know about outward events. It is to perceive the essential nature of things. The best-informed man is not necessarily the wisest. Indeed there is a danger that precisely in the multiplicity of his knowledge he will lose sight of what is essential. But on the other hand, knowledge of an apparently trivial detail quite often makes it possible to see into the depths of things. And so the wise man will seek to acquire the best possible knowledge about events, but always without becoming dependent upon this knowledge. To recognize the significant in the factual is wisdom. — Dietrich Bonhoeffer

In very truth, a wise imagination, which is the presence of the spirit of God, is the best guide that man or woman can have; for it is not the things we see the most clearly that influence us the most powerfully; undefined, yet vivid visions of something beyond, something which eye has not seen nor ear heard, have far more influence than any logical sequences whereby the same things may be demonstrated to the intellect. It is the nature of the thing, not the clearness of its outline, that determines its operation. We live by faith, and not by sight. — George MacDonald

Did they like being maids & butlers? Before you answer this consider everything you've ever read about English history after Robin Hood and before he Who. Your choices were: serving, being served, being killed by Jack the Ripper. So, the employee class made the best of it and got with the program. It was indoor work, after all. And as a wise man once observed, "You're gonna hafta serve somebody." (Bob Dylan, C. 1497-1580). And it beat mining. — Chris Kelly

I am not a 'wise man,' nor . . . shall I ever be. And so require not from me that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked. It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes. — Seneca.

The best part of such noble liquor, No less than gold and jewelry, By preference dwells in night and gloom. The wise man searches tirelessly; 5200 To see by daylight, that's child's play, But where it's dark, there mysteries have their home. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

It is best for the wise man not to seem wise. — Aeschylus

The best and safest thing is to keep a balance in your life, acknowledge the great powers around us and in us. If you can do that, and live that way, you are really a wise man. — Euripides

Since, therefore, no man is born without faults, and he is esteemed the best whose errors are the least, let the wise man consider everything human as connected with himself; for in worldly affairs there is no perfect happiness under heaven. — Giraldus Cambrensis

The ministers are in duty bound to denounce all intellectual pride, and show that we are never quite so dear to God as when we admit that we are poor, corrupt and idiotic worms; that we never should have been born; that we ought to be damned without the least delay ... The old creed is still taught. They still insist that God is infinitely wise, powerful and good, and that all men are totally depraved. They insist that the best man god ever made, deserved to be damned the moment he was finished. — Robert Green Ingersoll

He that is with the King, is not alone, though forsaken by all others. He on whom the sun shines is not without light, though all his candles are put out. If God be our God, he is our all. And if God be our all, we shall not, while he is with us, find the want of creatures. For, He is with us, who is every where, and therefore is never from us. He is with us, who is Almighty, and therefore we need not fear what man can do unto us. He can deliver us, when and how he pleases, from every danger and distress. He is with us, who is infinitely wise, to preserve us even from our own folly, as well as from our enemy's subtlety. He knows what to do with us, in what paths to lead us, and what condition is best for us. He is with us, who is infinitely good ; alone fit to be the perpetual delight of our souls. — Anonymous

Power will intoxicate the best hearts, as wine the strongest heads. No man is wise enough, nor good enough to be trusted with unlimited power. — Charles Caleb Colton

A wise man changes his mind sometimes, but a fool never. To change your mind is the best evidence you have one. — Desmond Ford

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