Great Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

For a Christian to say, "I will not have anything to do with the great and worthy works of artists whose lives were not good" is to fall into the impiety of questioning the wisdom of God in bestowing gifts of grace where He wills. — Frank E. Gaebelein

Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman ... whether it was by throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have. Men were different. They might hate each other but they stuck together against the world and against any woman who would ensnare one of them. — Betty Smith

The great ones do not set up offices, charge fees, give lectures, or write books. Wisdom is silent, and the most effective propaganda for truth is the force of personal example. The great ones attract disciples, lesser figures whose mission is to preach and to teach. These are gospelers who, unequal to the highest task, spend their lives in converting others. The great ones are indifferent, in the profoundest sense. They don't ask you to believe: they electrify you by their behavior. They are the awakeners. What you do with your petty life is of no concern to them. What you do with your life is only of concern to you, they seem to say. In short, their only purpose here on earth is to inspire. And what more can one ask of a human being than that? — Henry Miller

Set your mind on beauty, love, and virtue. You will be blessed, great, pure, and true. — Debasish Mridha

I haven't any wisdom - just a child like everybody else. I'm not as great as Frank Lloyd Wright. — Philip Johnson

These days I love to take in the sunset because every time I do so I remember how lucky I am to be alive. That's a great relationship to have with the setting sun. — Lincoln Hall

Speaking to the Heart is a great encouragement to men who want to be better husbands and fathers. It is both a practical job description of fatherhood-showing how fathers build strength in their children-and an inspiring call to family leadership. Any father who takes this book to heart and puts its wisdom into action will be known to his children as a great man. — James Stenson

How ironic it is then, to realize how many of we humans are masochists! That even when we are placed in paradise, the majority of us would, by choice, focus on everything outside the present moment and make ourselves suffer by thinking about Dis-Ease! Too many of us would dwell on a past that no longer exists while everything in the present moment is wonderful. What great paradoxes we as humans are capable of! — Alaric Hutchinson

Remember, the conventional wisdom is, "Yeah, you can do this like [Donald] Trump has done it during the primaries, buuuut once you get to the general, it's not about national votes. It's about states! It's about swing states. It's about battleground states. And you've gotta have targeted expenditures, great ads running against your opponent in those swing states." — Rush Limbaugh

This is the problem. An unconverted person may have great reasoning power and intellect, but when it comes to spiritual reality and the life of God and eternity, he makes no contribution. Whether it's Athens or Rome, whether it's Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, or Princeton, or wherever else, all the collected wisdom that is outside the Scripture adds up to nothing but foolishness. — John F. MacArthur Jr.

Persistence is the source of great strength. — Debasish Mridha

Great experiences are built on a foundation of bad experiences. — Tim Fargo

I love wisdom. And you can never be great at anything unless you love it. Not be in love with it, but love the thing, admire the thing. And it seems that if you love the thing, and you don't just want to possess it, it will find you. — Maya Angelou

Comparing ourselves instead of taking lessons from ourselves is not only a catalyst to diminishing our true purpose but also a great ingredient to thinking negative and staying in mediocrity — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We need mystery. Creator in her wisdom knew this. Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. They are the foundations of humility, and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel this. We honour it by letting it be that way forever.
The quote of a grandmother explaining The Great Mystery of the universe to her grandson. — Richard Wagamese

Humanity is an organism, inherently rejecting all that is deleterious, that is, wrong, and absorbing after trial what is beneficial, that is, right. If so disposed, the Architect of the Universe, we must assume, might have made the world and man perfect, free from evil and from pain, as angels in heaven are thought to be; but although this was not done, man has been given the power of advancement rather than of retrogression. The Old and New Testaments remain, like other sacred writings of other lands, of value as records of the past and for such good lessons as they inculcate. Like the ancient writers of the Bible our thoughts should rest upon this life and our duties here. "To perform the duties of this world well, troubling not about another, is the prime wisdom," says Confucius, great sage and teacher. The next world and its duties we shall consider when we are placed in it. — Andrew Carnegie

The key to maturity is time and community. Discernment and godly wisdom develop in a community that spans generations. The church is called to be this place where the [God's] Spirit uses normal patterns and rhythms of the Christian life in a community, so that we may bear fruit like a well-watered tree. Despite common appearances, the church is the place where God's new creation is coming into existence and being sustained by the Spirit like a great vineyard. — Michael Horton

There was a time when we were told ... that a sense of common interest would preside over the conduct of the respective members ... This language at the present day would appear as wild as that great part of what we now hear from the same quarter will be thought, when we shall have received further lessons from that best oracle of wisdom, experience. — Alexander Hamilton

Do not go for conformity that breeds mediocrity! Choose instead to stand for transformation that does not only transforms lives, but true purpose and living as well. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. — Samuel Johnson

A man will gain power and efficiency as he accepts the responsibilities that God places upon him, and with his whole soul seeks to qualify himself to bear them aright. However humble his position or limited his ability, that man will attain true greatness who, trusting to divine strength, seeks to perform his work with fidelity. Had Moses relied upon his own strength and wisdom, and eagerly accepted the great charge, he would have evinced his entire unfitness for such a work. The fact that a man feels his weakness is at least some evidence that he realizes the magnitude of the work appointed him, and that he will make God his counselor and his strength. — Ellen G. White

One of the greatest lessons we can learn in life is how to keep mute when the boiling ring of anger is dropped within us — Ikechukwu Izuakor

All that I seen makes be fear the Lord, for great is wrath. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I grew up around some great philosophers: they were coal miners and cowboys born in the 1920s. They were also vets of World War II. Listen to your elders, there isn't any better wisdom for you. — Stanley Victor Paskavich

Analysis predating [Milton] Friedman's gave a different answer to question of the Fed's policy errors [during the Great Depression] and new scholarship is validating the old wisdom. It now appears that Friedman will be merely an interlude between the sounder analysis of economists contemporary to the Great Depression and those who have rediscovered their insights. --Jeff Herbener — David Howden

May God continue to give you much more grace for every great deed. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Wisdom begins with the humility to say there's a great deal I don't understand. — Randy Alcorn

This religion so great in miracles, in men holy, pure and irreproachable, in scholars, great witnesses and martyrs, established kings - David - Isaiah, a prince of the blood; so great in knowledge, after displaying all its miracles and all its wisdom, rejects it all and says that it offers neither wisdom nor signs, but only the Cross and folly. — Blaise Pascal

Great stories strengthen us to be great souls. — Lailah Gifty Akita

To have a great dream is a choice. To make it a reality depends on great habits. — Debasish Mridha

There is the silence of age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it in words intelligible to those who have not lived the great range of life. — Edgar Lee Masters

Every one of the world's "great" religions utterly trivializes the immensity and beauty of the cosmos. Books like the Bible and the Koran get almost every significant fact about us and our world wrong. Every scientific domain
from cosmology to psychology to economics
has superseded and surpassed the wisdom of Scripture.
Everything of value that people get from religion can be had more honestly, without presuming anything on insufficient evidence. The rest is self-deception, set to music. — Sam Harris

The Great Being saith: Human utterance is an essence which aspireth to exert its influence and needeth moderation. As to its influence, this is conditional upon refinement which in turn is dependent upon hearts which are detached and pure. As to its moderation, this hath to be combined with tact and wisdom as prescribed in the Holy Scriptures and Tablets. — Baha'u'llah

Do not be discouraged on account of the greatness of the work; only be humble and faithful ... He who scattered Israel has promised to gather them; therefore inasmuch as you are to be instrumental in this great work, He will endow you with power, wisdom, might, and intelligence, and every qualification necessary. — Joseph Smith Jr.

When we are truly aware of great abundance in our life, feel grateful and express gratitude for those treasures and beauty, then we are fully living. — Debasish Mridha

But when we reflect how difficult it is to move or inflect the great machine of society, how impossible to advance the notions of a whole people suddenly to ideal right, we see the wisdom of Solon's remark that no more good must be attempted than the nation can bear, and that will be chiefly to reform the waste of public money, and thus drive away the vultures who prey on it, and improve some little on old routines. Even — Jon Meacham

Great beginnings are not as important as the way one finishes. — James Dobson

The defect in wisdom and taste which exists among the majority of dancers is due to the bad education which they generally receive. They apply themselves only to the material side of their art, they learn to jump more or less high, they strive mechanically to execute a number of steps, and like children, who utter a great many words devoid of sense and relation, they execute many phrases of steps devoid of taste and grace. — Jean-Georges Noverre

Doubtless a great anguish may do the work of years, and we may come out from that baptism of fire with a soul full of new awe and new pity. — George Eliot

Ideas are merely sensations imprinted deep inside us ... Like attracts like ... There is great wisdom in the subconscious mind. If you begin to work with it, it can be of tremendous benefit to you and serve as an excellent reservoir of knowledge.. — James Van Praagh

Happiness is there when you have great imagination and vision, when you take relentless action and love your creation. — Debasish Mridha

It is a queer thing. In a time of great need, when powerful leadership is demanded, the people - confused and excited - hear only the strident voices of the audacious, and refuse to listen to the voice of wisdom which, being wise, is temperate. — Lloyd C. Douglas

The 20th century has been characterized by three developments of great political importance. The growth of democracy; the growth of corporate power; and the growth of corporate propaganda against democracy. — Alex Carey

Share your love, share your happiness; you will be rich and a great success. — Debasish Mridha

As a child, we let go of the past easily but not as an adult. As a child, we changed one grade after another without complaints and with eagerness, but now we are changing our grade every day, but without joy and with great dismay. — Debasish Mridha

There lived great souls in history. — Lailah Gifty Akita

When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality. — Henry David Thoreau

So we recast the wisdom of the great thinkers in the shape of our illusions. They are shiny from their makeovers, they are fabulous and gorgeous, and they want us to know that we can have it all. — Brian Morton

The contradictory, consuming, contested relationship between detail and whole, event an eventuality, breathes fire and wisdom in every great work of art. — Russell Sherman

A nation orients itself by its own geniuses, and derives from them its ideas of its own ideals, but the guiding star serves also as a light to other nations. As speech has been created by a few great men, the most extraordinary wisdom lies concealed in it, a wisdom which reveals itself to a few ardent explorers but which is usually overlooked by the stupid professional philologists. — Otto Weininger

The subject of Prison Discipline is one of the highest importance to any community; and that in her sweeping reform and bright example to other countries on this head, America has shown great wisdom, great benevolence, and exalted policy. In contrasting her system with that which we have modelled upon it, I merely seek to show that with all its drawbacks, ours has some advantages of its own. — Charles Dickens

I do interviews because it's a chance to be myself. I sometimes wonder what I could have to say that would be of any interest. I don't have any great wisdom. — Parker Stevenson

In this new year, may you have a deep understanding of your true value and worth, an absolute faith in your unlimited potential, peace of mind in the midst of uncertainty, the confidence to let go when you need to, acceptance to replace your resistance, gratitude to open your heart, the strength to meet your challenges, great love to replace your fear, forgiveness and compassion for those who offend you, clear sight to see your best and true path, hope to dispel obscurity, the conviction to make your dreams come true, meaningful and rewarding synchronicities, dear friends who truly know and love you, a childlike trust in the benevolence of the universe, the humility to remain teachable, the wisdom to fully embrace your life exactly as it is, the understanding that every soul has its own course to follow, the discernment to recognize your own unique inner voice of truth, and the courage to learn to be still. — Janet Rebhan

I've never agreed with the conventional wisdom that 'actors are great liars.' If more people understood the acting process, the goals of good actors, the conventional wisdom would be 'actors are terrible liars,' because only bad actors lie on the job. The good ones hate fakery and avoid manufactured emotion at all costs. Any script is enough of a lie anyway. (What experience does any actor have with flying a spacecraft? Killing someone?) What's called for, what actors are hired for, is to bring reality to the arbitrary. — Rob Lowe

Food and sex have been bound together for a long time. I guess this is due to the intimate connection between the two most powerful instincts that predominate in life: the instinct to survive and the instinct to multiply. Nourishment and sex give us a great sense of pleasure. Having the wisdom to satisfy both desires - for food and sex - is the art of living well. I truly believe that this wisdom lies within us all. — Ori Hofmekler

The true Indian sets no price upon either his property or his labor. His generosity is limited only by his strength and ability. He regards it as an honor to be selected for difficult or dangerous service and would think it shameful to ask for any reward, saying rather: Let the person I serve express his thanks according to his own bringing up and his sense of honor. Each soul must meet the morning sun, the new sweet earth, and the Great Silence alone!. What is Silence? It is the Great Mystery! The Holy Silence is His voice! — Charles Alexander Eastman

Great spirit, Great soul. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It is not only the hostility of others that may prevent us from questioning the status quo. Our will to doubt can be just as powerfully sapped by an internal sense that societal conventions must have a sound basis, even if we are not sure exactly what this may be, because they have been adhered to by a great many people for a long time. It seems implausible that our society could be gravely mistaken in its beliefs, and at the same time, that we would be alone in noticing the fact. We stifle our doubts, and follow the flock, because we cannot conceive of ourselves as pioneers of hitherto unknown difficult truths. It is for help in overcoming our meekness that we can turn to the philosopher. — Alain De Botton

By a constitutional policy, working after the pattern of nature, we receive, we hold, we transmit our government and our privileges, in the same manner in which we enjoy and transmit our property and our lives. The institutions of policy, the goods of fortune, the gifts of providence are handed down to us, and from us, in the same course and order. Our political system is placed in a just correspondence and symmetry with the order of the world, and with the mode of existence decreed to a permanent body composed of transitory parts; wherein, by the disposition of a stupendous wisdom, moulding together the great mysterious incorporation of the human race, the whole, at one time, is never old, or middle-aged, or young, but, in a condition of unchangeable constancy, moves on through the varied tenor of perpetual decay, fall, renovation, and progression. Thus, by preserving the method of nature in the conduct of the state, in what we improve, we are never wholly new ... — Edmund Burke

I'm not opposed to aging - even though society is kinder on men than women when it comes to getting old. How can I look at aging as the enemy? It happens whether I like it or not and no one is set apart from growing old; it comes to us all. Youth passes from everyone, so why deny it? I'm proud of my age. I'm proud that I've survived this planet for as long as I have, and should I end up withered, wrinkled and with a lifetime of great wisdom, I'll trade the few years of youth for the sophistication of a great mind ... for however long it lasts. — Donna Lynn Hope

The health of a church depends not merely on the creed which it professes, not even on the wisdom and holiness of a few great ecclesiastics, but on the faith and virtue of its individual members. — Charles Kingsley

Great self-skills are self-confident, self-courage and self-steadiness. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The voyages of the great Chinese fleet were missions of exploration and commerce. They were not enterprises of conquest. No yearning for domination obliged Zheng to scorn or condemn what he found. What was not admirable was at least worthy of curiosity. And from trip to trip, the imperial library in Beijing continued growing until it held four thousand books that collected the wisdom of the world.
At the time, the king of Portugal had six books. — Eduardo Galeano

Great grace is the power of great thanks. — Lailah Gifty Akita

All the stories and poems and letters and oracles and wisdom verses of God's Word, like individual instruments in a great orchestra, serve THE WHOLE story. — James MacDonald

The habit of quietly absorbing the shocks will be quite a great help to stabilize pure awareness.
The technique is: Just feel not disturbed.
The disturbing influence could be a blessing of Mother Nature to develop the habit to make
best use out of every situation.
Every situation is God Sent. With this supreme wisdom of life any situation can be used
to our advantage and regarded as a blessing of Mother Nature. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

But the great wisdom of life is to realize that we can be the masters of the things that try to enslave us — Paulo Coelho

A man cannot be wise enough to be a great artist without being wise enough to wish to be a philosopher. — Gilbert K. Chesterton

Great are those two gifts, wisdom and continence: wisdom, forsooth, whereby we are formed in the knowledge of God; continence whereby we are not conformed to this world. — Saint Augustine

The first peace, which is the most important,
is that which comes within the souls of people
when they realize their relationship,
their oneness with the universe and all its powers,
and when they realize that at the center of the universe
dwells the Great Spirit,
and that this center is really everywhere,
it is within each of us. — Black Elk

I bear to the wisdom of Sir Philip Sidney, who said that next to hunting he liked hawking worst. However, though he may have fallen into as hyperbolical an extreme, yet who can put too great a scorn upon their folly, that, to bring home a rascal deer, or a few rotten conies, submit their lives to the will or passion of such as may take them under a penalty no less slight than there is discretion shown in exposing them. — Frances Osborne

Antiphon, as another man gets pleasure from a good horse, or a dog, or a bird, I get even more pleasure from good friends. And if I have something good, I teach it to them, and I introduce them to others who will be useful to them with respect to virtue. And together with my friends I go through the treasures of wise men of old which they left behind written in books, and we peruse them. If we see something good, we pick it out and hold it to be a great profit, if we are able to prove useful to one another. — Socrates

I even went to the source of all wisdom, I went and knelt at the great Queen of Drag's feet and asked her how to find love.
She backhanded me in between verses of Whitney Houston and told me if she knew, why in fuck would she be here ? — John Goode

Everybody wants to be on the mountaintop, but if you'll remember, mountaintops are rocky and cold. There is no growth on the top of a mountain. Sure, the view is great, but what's a view for? A view just gives us a glimpse of our next destination-our next target. But to hit that target, we must come off the mountain, go through the valley, and begin to climb the next slope. It is in the valley that we slog through the lush grass and rich soil, learning and becoming what enables us to summit life's next peak. — Andy Andrews

An apt and true reply was given to Alexander the Great by a pirate who had been seized. For when that king had asked the man what he meant by keeping hostile possession of the sea, he answered with bold pride. "What thou meanest by seizing the whole earth; but because I do it with a petty ship, I am called a robber, whilst thou who dost it with a great fleet art styled emperor." — Saint Augustine

Whether it be training, dieting, working out, or work ethic, for every great excuse "Not" to do something, there are 100 "better" reasons for you to do it. — Mark W. Boyer

Intercession is God's brilliant strategy for including the saints in ruling with Him in power. Yet, it has such great impact on us as it draws us into intimacy with God, protects with humility, transforms with holiness, anoints with power, unifies in community, releases revelation, and increases our inheritance while it trains us to rule with His wisdom. — Mike Bickle

I wanted to lie hour after hour on a couch, pouring out the dark, secret places of my heart
do this feeling that over my shoulder sat humanity and wisdom and generosity, a munificent heart
do this until that incredibly lovely day when the great man would say to me, his voice grave and dramatic with discovery: This is you, Exley. Rise and go back into the world a whole man. — Frederick Exley

Ruth and I don't have a perfect marriage, but we have a great one. How can I say two things that seem so contradictory? In a perfect marriage, everything is always the finest and best imaginable; like a Greek statue, the proportions are exact and the finish is unblemished. Who knows any human being lke that? For a marriage couple to expect perfection in each other is unrealistic. — Billy Graham

Flowers grows in silence, quietly, slowly, passionately, with great love and with all its power just perfectly. — Debasish Mridha

Living in the fast lane is great as long as you remember where the slip roads are — Benny Bellamacina

Peace is truth, trust, and harmony. Peace is joy, love, and great care. — Debasish Mridha

Great life, great deeds. — Lailah Gifty Akita

As electricity is a great power in the world, so the inner mind is the greatest power available to you. Neither operates independently; both depend upon a separate agency to ignite them to action, and both bring helpful or harmful results according to the wisdom or ignorance with which they are directed. — Roger McDonald

I have given up the ambition to be a great scholar. I want to be more- simply a human ... We are not true humans, but beings who live by a civilization inherited from the past, that keeps us hostage, that confines us. No freedom of movement. Nothing. Everything in us is killed by our calculations for our future, by our social position and cast. You see, I am not happy-yet I am happy. I suffer, but that is part of life. I live, I don't care about my existence, and that is the beginning of wisdom. — Albert Schweitzer

He gives wisdom to whoever He wills and he who has been given wisdom has been given great good. But — Abdalhaqq Bewley

Don't expect wisdom to come into your life like great chunks of rock on a conveyor belt. Wisdom comes privately from God as a byproduct of right decisions, godly reactions, and the application of spiritual principles to daily circumstances. — Charles R. Swindoll

Find a great purpose of life and be happy. — Debasish Mridha

Great mercy, great love. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Trepidation is either the sign of great weakness or great wisdom. — Lou Aronica

One may be an excellent pianist, mathematician, gardener, or scientist and still be cranky and jealous, but in the West one can be considered a great moralist and yet not live by one's moral principles. We must simply recall here the Buddhist requirement that a person and his or her teachings be compatible. Ethics is not like any ordinary science. It must arise from the deepest understanding of human qualities, and such understanding comes only when one undertakes the journey of discovery personally. An ethic that is built exclusively on intellectual ideas and that is not buttressed at every point by virtue, genuine wisdom, and compassion has no solid foundation. — Matthieu Ricard

The purpose of life is to be happy by being useful to others. Always have the inborn sense of wonder and enjoy the wonderful universe every moment with great love and great affection. — Debasish Mridha

Button-holes! there is something lively in the very idea of 'em - and trust me, when I get amongst 'em - you gentry with great beards - look as grave as you will - I'll make merry work with my button-holes - I shall have 'em all to myself - 'tis a maiden subject - I shall run foul of no man's wisdom or fine sayings in it. — Laurence Sterne

I have no doubt that historians will conclude that we of the twentieth century had intelligence enough to create a great civilization but not the moral wisdom to preserve it. — Aiden Wilson Tozer

Not the comfort, but the confrontation and hardship, is the teacher of a great life. — Debasish Mridha

These civilians are discovering that their place in the world is smaller than they imagined. They do not matter. In war, men lose what makes them great. Their creativity. Their wisdom. Their joy. All that's left is their utility. War is not monstrous for making corpses of men so much as it is for making machines of them. And woe to those who have no use in war except to feed the machines. The — Pierce Brown

I AM come of a race noted for vigor of fancy and ardor of passion. Men have called me mad; but the question is not yet settled, whether madness is or is not the loftiest intelligence
whether much that is glorious
whether all that is profound
does not spring from disease of thought
from moods of mind exalted at the expense of the general intellect. They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night. In their gray visions they obtain glimpses of eternity, and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which is of good, and more of the mere knowledge which is of evil. They penetrate, however, rudderless or compassless into the vast ocean of the "light ineffable", and again, like the adventures of the Nubian geographer, "agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi".
We will say then, that I am mad. — Edgar Allan Poe

When you draw on God's grace to put off your self-centered attitudes and act on His principles, you put His glory on display. Your life points to His vast wisdom, compassion, and transforming power, and as you look for God's glory, the impact reaches far beyond yourself because you give everyone around you reason to respect and praise God. Glorifying God is not about letting others see how great you are. It's about letting them see how great the Lord is. — Ken Sande

If you have a great purpose and develop good habits of persistence and patience, you will be great success. — Debasish Mridha