The Wise Ones Quotes & Sayings

When the glamour wears off, or merely works a bit thin, they think they have made a mistake, and that the real soul-mate is still to find ... And of course they are as a rule quite right: they did make a mistake. Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgment concerning whom, amongst the total chances, he ought most profitably to have married! Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates. But the 'real soul-mate' is the one you are actually married to. — J.R.R. Tolkien

We are flooded with books; books come pouring out of the publishing meat grinder. And, the quality has dropped severely. We may be able to print a book better, but intrinsically the book, perhaps, is not better than it was. We have a backlist of books, superb books, by Margaret Wise Brown, by Ruth Krauss, by lots of people. I'd much rather we just took a year off, a moratorium: no more books. For a year, maybe two - just stop publishing. And get those old books back, let the children see them! Books don't go out of fashion with children; they only go out of fashion with adults. So that kids are deprived of the works of art which are no longer around simply because new ones keep coming out.

from The Openhearted Audience (1980) — Maurice Sendak

I think through it all, the hardest part was un-attaching myself to the ones I thought would stay around forever. People change and life changes with it, you've got to fight like mad for everything you love and let go with ease for everything that isn't fitting for you anymore. It is apart of maturing your soul, you attract what you need for that stage of your life, and you grow, as people change and so does life. — Nikki Rowe

The prediction I can make with the highest confidence is that the most amazing discoveries will be the ones we are not today wise enough to foresee. — Carl Sagan

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. — Tecumseh

A wise nation should cultivate a political spirit that allows opponents to cooperate without fearing an automatic execution from their core supporters. Who knew that the real rogues in American politics would be the ones who dare to get along? — Jon Meacham

Once again we find ourselves enmeshed in the Holiday Season, that very special time of year when we join with our loved ones in sharing centuries-old traditions such as trying to find a parking space at the mall. We traditionally do this in my family by driving around the parking lot until we see a shopper emerge from the mall, then we follow her, in very much the same spirit as the Three Wise Men, who 2,000 years ago followed a star, week after week, until it led them to a parking space. — Dave Barry

And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek . . . And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. 'You too come forth,' He will say, 'Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!' And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, 'Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!' And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, 'Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?' And He will say, 'This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.' And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him . . . and we shall weep . . . and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand everything! . . . and all will understand — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Ka-Be is the Lager without the physical discomforts. So that, whoever still has some seeds of conscience, feels his conscience re-awaken; and in the long empty days, one speaks of other things than hunger and work and one begins to consider what they have made us become, how much they have taken away from us, what this life is. In this Ka-Be, an enclosure of relative peace, we have learnt that our personality is fragile, that it is much more in danger than our life; and the old wise ones, instead of warning us 'remember that you must die', would have done much better to remind us of this great danger that threatens us. If from inside the Lager, a message could have seeped out to free men, it would have been this: take care not to suffer in your own homes what is inflicted on us here. — Primo Levi

The wind in ones face makes one wise. — George Herbert

A word to the wise ain't necessary, it's the stupid ones who need advice. — Bill Cosby

Love is about feeling that there is something bigger than just ourselves and our own worries and existence. Whether it is love of another person, of country, of God, of an idea, love is fundamentally an intense devotion to this notion that something is bigger than us. Love is ultimately larger than friendship, comfort, ceremony, knowledge, or joy. Indeed, as the Four Wise Ones once said, it may be all you need. — Daniel Levitin

A ring-whorled prow rode in the harbour,
ice-clad, outbound, a craft for a prince.
They stretched their beloved lord in his boat,
laid out by the mast, amidships,
the great ring-giver. Far fetched treasures
were piled upon him, and precious gear.
I have never heard before of a ship so well furbished
with battle tackle, bladed weapons
and coats of mail. The massed treasure
was loaded on top of him: it would travel far
on out into the ocean's sway.
They decked his body no less bountifully
with offerings than those first ones did
who cast him away when he was a child
and launched him alone over the waves.
And they set a gold standard up
high above his head and let him drift
to wind and tide, bewailing him
and mourning their loss. No man can tell,
no wise man in hall or weathered veteran
knows for certain who salvaged that load. — Seamus Heaney

You'd be wise to eat lightly, or not at all, of any food you do not prepare yourself." "At all the feasts and festivities that will be there?" "No. Only at the ones you wish to survive. — Robin Hobb

The happiest people on Earth are the ones who know love. — Wayne Gerard Trotman

It soon transpired, however, that the unicorn only approached youthful maidens, paying absolutely no attention to older ones. Being a wise creature, the unicorn indubitably knows that remaining too long in the state of maidenhood is suspicious and counter to the natural order. Physiologus — Andrzej Sapkowski

For you see, the face of destiny or luck or god that gives us war also gives us other kinds of pain: the loss of health and youth; the loss of loved ones or of love; the fear that we will end our days alone. Some people suffer in peace the way others suffer in war. The special gift of that suffering, I have learned, is how to be strong while we are weak, how to be brave when we are afraid, how to be wise in the midst of confusion, and how to let go of that which we can no longer hold. In this way, anger can teach us forgiveness, hate can teach us love, and war can teach us peace. — Le Ly Hayslip

The pathway to peace is an in describable journey of facing ones darkness, to find ones light. If they told you it's easier to give up, you met a fool; if they told you; it's easier to grow, you met the wise. — Nikki Rowe

Healers make the most dreadful enemies, Scion of the House of Strong-in-the-Arm. The knowledge that saves lives can be used to do exactly the opposite. Especially when they have the blood of the Wise Ones in their veins. — Stuart Hill

Yeah, for me there are other challenges that aren't musical too. Like you just don't have as many people to feed off of energy wise, you are loading in and out and you are driving yourself more. Most of the challenges that count are the musical ones. I don't know why people come out to the shows, but I never think that it is to hear me play the guitar and sing. I think it must be in the writing and the presentation, which are the areas that I feel most comfortable. — Stephen Kellogg

So let me just say this. There are ways. You already know that because, in your life, there have been High Kindness periods and Low Kindness periods, and you know what inclined you toward the former and away from the latter. Education is good; immersing ourselves in a work of art: good; prayer is good; meditation's good; a frank talk with a dear friend; establishing ourselves in some kind of spiritual tradition - recognizing that there have been countless really smart people before us who have asked these same questions and left behind answers for us. It would be strange and self-defeating to fail to seek out these wise voices from the past
as self-defeating as it would be to attempt to rediscover the principles of physics from scratch or invent a new method of brain surgery without having learned the ones that already exist. — George Saunders

And the men come on again: the flashy and the penitent, the beaten ones and the wise guys, the hangdog heel thieves and the disdainful coneroos, walking, half crouched, through a downpour of light like men walking through rain. The frayed and the hesitant, the sleek and the bold, the odd fish and the callow youths, the good-humored bindle stiffs and the bitter veterans. — Nelson Algren

When a love comes to an end, weaklings cry, efficient ones instantly find another love, and the wise already have one in reserve. — Oscar Wilde

The wise will hide your follies and help you learn, but the wicked ones will gossip about it with scoundrels. — Aniruddha Sastikar

I think I have grown wise enough
To not to wish to climb up the stairs
'M gonna sit, walk, crawl, swing by on the step I am
And let the upper ones have their stare — Mansi Laus Deo

That's the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be. — Gemma Burgess

See the judge upon the bench who tries the case as best he can, see the wise and wicked ones who feed upon life's sacred fire, see the soldier with his gun who must be dead to be admired. — Gordon Lightfoot

I suspect the I.Q., SAT, and school grades are tests designed by nerds so they can get high scores in order to call each other intelligent ... Smart and wise people who score low on IQ tests, or patently intellectually defective ones, like the former U.S. president George
W. Bush, who score high on them (130), are testing the test and not the reverse. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft - and everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them! Just see these superfluous ones! Sick are they always; they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another, and cannot even digest themselves. Just see these superfluous ones! Wealth they acquire and become poorer thereby. Power they seek for, and above all, the lever of power, much money - these impotent ones! — Friedrich Nietzsche

42. The colour of milk is one, the colours of the cows many, So is the nature of knowledge, observe the wise ones. Beings of various marks and attributes, Are like the cows, their realisation is the same; This is an example we should know. — Ramana Maharshi

I'm too alone in the world, yet not alone enough
to make each hour holy.
I'm too small in the world, yet not small enough
to be simply in your presence, like a thing -
just as it is.

I want to know my own will
and to move with it.
And I want, in the hushed moments
when the nameless draws near,
to be among the wise ones -
or alone.

I want to mirror your immensity.
I want never to be too weak or too old
to bear the heavy, lurching image of you.

I want to unfold.
Let no place in me hold itself closed,
for where I am closed, I am false.
I want to stay clear in your sight. — Rainer Maria Rilke

As you swallow the cow's tongue, think for a moment about how strange and holy that is, to devour the tongue of another. To steal from it all its power to speak, to low at the moon, to call to its calf. To be worthy of such food you must guard your own words carefully, speaking only the wise and clever ones, lest your tongue end up likewise, on the plate of a rich man. — Catherynne M Valente

But he had seen so little of life and the world himself, that he could scarcely help being one-sided and narrow-minded; and as he would not avail himself of his father's wider knowledge, what remained but to make mistakes? So, priding himself on an inflexible firmness in matters of "principle," however small, he confounded together things indifferent and important; did even wise ones foolishly; and attempted others which were neither wise, nor worth a hundredth part of the offence they created. "We — Mrs. Alfred Gatty

Active people make lots of mistakes, and wise ones grow from them (Hebrews 5:14). They try something, experience a limit, and adapt. They experience the depth of God's forgiveness because they do things for which they need to be forgiven. Passive people have trouble learning because they are afraid to take risks. Because of this, they also have a harder time taking charge of their lives and boundaries. God is not pleased with those who "shrink back" in passivity (Hebrews 10:38). He wants his people to participate in life with him, not wait on the sidelines. — Henry Cloud

Follow then the shining ones, the wise, the awakened, the loving, for they know how to work and forbear. — Gautama Buddha

Belle's mind populated the castle with royalty from all the eras she could imagine:
Recent ones with great powdered wigs and hats in the shapes of fanciful things like ships, great skirts that billowed out, ugly garish makeup on the faces of those who gossiped behind embroidered silk fans.
Renaissance rulers with thick curled collars and poison rings, intellect and conspiracy at every dinner.
Ancient kings and queens in long, heavy dresses and cloaks, wise looks on their faces and solid gold crowns on their heads, innocents in a world they believed to possess unicorns and dragons, and maps whose seas ran off at the edges, beyond where the tygres were.
Of course, maybe around here there were dragons and unicorns. Who knew? They had talking teacups. — Liz Braswell

The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life. — Henry David Thoreau

Humans are destructive animals, but they are also wise ones. — Gemma Malley

Because the Romans did in these instances what all prudent princes ought to do, who have to regard not only present troubles, but also future ones, for which they must prepare with every energy, because, when foreseen, it is easy to remedy them; but if you wait until they approach, the medicine is no longer in time because the malady has become incurable; for it happens in this, as the physicians say it happens in hectic fever, that in the beginning of the malady it is easy to cure but difficult to detect, but in the course of time, not having been either detected or treated in the beginning, it becomes easy to detect but difficult to cure. This it happens in affairs of state, for when the evils that arise have been foreseen (which it is only given to a wise man to see), they can be quickly redressed, but when, through not having been foreseen, they have been permitted to grow in a way that every one can see them, there is no longer a remedy — Niccolo Machiavelli

Everything is always a story, but the loveliest ones are those that get written and are not torn up and are taken to a friend as payment for listening, for putting a wise keyhole to the ear of my mind — Janet Frame

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

Those wise ones who see that the consciousness within them is the same consciousness within all beings, attain peace. -THE KATHA UPANISHAD — Gabrielle Orr

The high temperatures and the coughing had left them with a wise look, a sometimes sly look of the old, the tired, the ones who just lay and didn't care if the sun came up, or if it went down, and stayed down. They scared me; their haunted faces took me into dreams of death. — V.C. Andrews

I realized then that both Gladys and Norm were smiling at about the time I realized that Max and I were acting like lunatics.
"I don't think she's tied up in knots anymore, Gladie," Norm observed.
"She is, dear, just not ones she wants to untie," Gladys remarked. — Kristen Ashley

No man is as wise as Mother Earth. She has witnessed every human day, every human struggle, every human pain, and every human joy. For maladies of both body and spirit, the wise ones of old pointed man to the hills. For man too is of the dust and Mother Earth stands ready to nurture and heal her children. — Anasazi Foundation

You want to know why we're the ones responsible?" Gunny asked.
I looked up into a pair of wise eyes that had seen far more than mine.
"Because there's nobody else," he said. — D.J. MacHale

People can have the best of intentions when they tell their loved ones how they should be living their lives. But often times, when we are in struggle, we are seeking to be supported, not solved. — Jaeda DeWalt

And he is to be deemed courageous whose spirit retains in pleasure and in pain the commands of reason about what he ought or ought not to fear? Right, he replied. And him we call wise who has in him that little part which rules, and which proclaims these commands; that part too being supposed to have a knowledge of what is for the interest of each of the three parts and of the whole? Assuredly. And would you not say that he is temperate who has these same elements in friendly harmony, in whom the one ruling principle of reason, and the two subject ones of spirit and desire are equally agreed that reason ought to rule, and do not rebel? Certainly, he said, that is the true account of temperance whether in the State or individual. And — Plato

Everything perishes except the world itself and its keepers ... But while life lasts everything on earth has its use. The wise seek ways to be helpful to the world, for the helpful ones are sure to live again. — L. Frank Baum

The magi, as you know, were wise men
wonderfully wise men
who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi. — O. Henry

There were fat cats and skinny cats. The long-tailed and the bobbed. The daring young leapers, and the old windowsill sleepers. Balls of waddling fluff, smooth-coated prowlers, and hairless ones that looked fragile and wise. The tiger-striped, the ring-tailed, and the ones with matching coloured socks and mittens. There were tabbies and calicos. Manx and Persians. Siamese and Bombay. Ragdolls and Birmans. Maine Coons and Russian Blues. There were Snowshoes and Somalis, Tonkinese and Turkish, and many, many more. Brown and beige and orange and grey and black and white and silver cats, each with gleaming eyes of emerald, or sapphire, or amber. A rainbow of precious stones. — Brooke Burgess

But he was wise enough even at twenty to see that what many would call an utter and admirable freedom was also a sort of thicket or wilderness, in which, by virtue of being able to take any path he chose, he was lost in a dense jungle of the possible, the sheer welter of which sometimes overwhelmed him. The irony was, he thought, that as soon as you chose a path, you mourned and regretted the ones that you did not choose; but to choose none was to moon uselessly over them all, and thus be imprisoned by impasse. How very many people, he thought as he walked through the catchbirdtrees by the lake, were frozen by the weight of their potential, the imposing alps of their dreams? — Brian Doyle

A word to the wise an't nesisary its the stupid ones who need the edvise. — Eliga H. Gould

Some Things, Say the Wise Ones Some things, say the wise ones who know everything, are not living. I say, you live your life your way and leave me alone. I have talked with the faint clouds in the sky when they are afraid of being left behind; I have said, Hurry, hurry! and they have said: thank you, we are hurrying. About cows, and starfish, and roses, there is no argument. They die, after all. But water is a question, so many living things in it, but what is it, itself, living or not? Oh, gleaming generosity, how can they write you out? As I think this I am sitting on the sand beside the harbor. I am holding in my hand small pieces of granite, pyrite, schist. Each one, just now, so thoroughly asleep. — Mary Oliver

The best and most popular novelists do not, as a rule, have children in their books at all, and this is wise. Parents are about the only people who are interested in children, and they merely in their own ones. — E.M. Delafield

Like Muslims we assume that God will judge us "on balance." If our good deeds outweigh our bad deeds, we will arrive safely in heaven. But, alas, if our evil deeds outweigh our good ones, we will suffer the wrath of God in hell. We may be "marred" by sin but in no wise devastated by it. We still have the ability to balance our sins with our own righteousness. This is the most monstrous lie of all. — R.C. Sproul

Times change, and people change with the times - the wise ones do. Wisdom lies in knowing when to remember and when to forget. Consistency is not a habit of mind which it is wise to practice or to expect of the human race. — Ayn Rand

Before the birth of all things, there existed an undifferentiated whole. A solitary void: unchanging, yet operating everywhere, without exhaustion. It is therefore considered the source of everything. I do not know its true name, although some call it Tao. If compelled to characterize it, I would simply call it great. For to be great implies that it is far-reaching, to be far-reaching implies distance, and to be distant implies returning to the source. Thus the Tao is great, Heaven is great, Earth is great, the wise person is also great. In the universe there are four great ones, and the wise person is one of them. The wise person follows the laws of Earth, Earth follows the laws of Heaven, and Heaven follows the law of Tao. The Tao, with nothing to follow, is natural unto itself. — Lao-Tzu

Are you ready ?" she asked, spinning the chamber.
Kell gazed through the gate at the waiting castle. "No."
At that, she offered him the sharpest edge of a grin.
"Good," she said. "The ones who think they're ready always end up dead. — V.E Schwab

Just as we cast off worn clothes and wear new ones, when the time arrives, the soul casts off the body and finds a new one to work out its karma. Therefore the wise grieve neither for the living nor the dead. — Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

All governments like the ignorant, because their existence depends on them! If the society becomes wise, governments cannot survive, at least the bad ones cannot! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

Buddha advised: Bhikshus and wise ones, As gold is burnt, cut, and rubbed Take my advice by examining my speech well - Not [merely] for the sake of respect. — Yangsi

She said confidence and arrogance weren't the same, especially in a Dominant, and I'd know I had the right Dom for me when he was....when he was intimidating enough to be arousing, wise enough to keep me safe, and caring enough to help me grow, even when the right choices were hard ones. — M.Q. Barber

The problem with the religious solution [for mysteries such as consciousness and moral judgments] was stated by Mencken when he wrote, "Theology is the effort to explain the unknowable in terms of the not worth knowing." For anyone with a persistent intellectual curiosity, religious explanations are not worth knowing because they pile equally baffling enigmas on top of the original ones. What gave God a mind, free will, knowledge, certainty about right and wrong? How does he infuse them into a universe that seems to run just fine according to physical laws? How does he get ghostly souls to interact with hard matter? And most perplexing of all, if the world unfolds according to a wise and merciful plan, why does it contain so much suffering? As the Yiddish expression says, If God lived on earth, people would break his window. — Steven Pinker

Middle school is kind of like Middle-earth. It's a magical journey filled with elves, dwarves, hobbits, queens, kings, and a few corrupt wizards. Word to the wise: pick your traveling companions well. Ones with the courage and moral fiber to persevere. Ones who wield their lip gloss like magic wands when confronted with danger. This way, when you pass through the congested hallways rife with pernicious diversion, you achieve your desired destination - or at least your next class.
-CeCee, Lucy and CeCee's How to Survive (and Thrive) in Middle School — Kimberly Dana

According to Mark 11:12-13, God's messengers were not the only ones who were incompetent: 'He [Jesus] was hungry. And on seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see if he could find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs.'
Imagine Jesus, the divine, holy, wisest of the wise not knowing that figs were out of season. Now allegedly Jesus could have performed a miracle and made figs magically appear, but he preferred sour grapes instead: Then he said to the tree, 'May no one ever eat fruit from you again.' (Mark 11:14) — G.M. Jackson

There is much to be learned from the world around us - far more than we normally comprehend. The Ancient Ones knew this well - most particularly the wise teachers among them - those who, in the Navajo tongue, were called "Anasazi. — Anasazi Foundation

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

The wise man says: the wind carries all noises, but only repeats the real ones! — Roger Leloup

The female, she said, was like a queen who sat on her throne talking with God. This is the part of us that can converse easily with Spirit. She is wise and intuitive, and totally tuned in. However, by herself she cannot accomplish anything in the world, for she needs her best warrior to help her. This is the inner male. He has the power to bring her ideas to fruition, the power to make them real. In other words, without her wisdom the warrior acts aimlessly, even destructively. But when he is connected to her, and she is connected to Spirit, then he and she can become anything from a sage to a king, a magician, or a lover, but together they can become enlightened ones. — Tricia McCannon

Avoid singularity. There may often be less vanity in following the new modes than in adhering to the old ones. It is true that the foolish invent them, but the wise may conform to, instead of contradicting, them. — Joseph Joubert

It dishonors the deaths of our loved ones to shut out happiness. We throw away what we could have been and waste our opportunities. We each have a purpose, a destiny, and to realize it, we must reach beyond what we think we are capable of ... A wise woman once told me that I needed to learn the lesson of the lotus flower: All of our human experience, both the good and the bad, grounds us like the sludge in a river. We may be rooted in pain or suffering but our job is to rise above it, find the sun, and bloom. Only then can you brighten the world for others. — Colleen Houck

Examining this water ... I found floating therein divers earthy particles, and some green streaks, spirally wound serpent-wise ... and I judge that some of these little creatures were above a thousand times smaller than the smallest ones I have ever yet seen, upon the rind of cheese, in wheaten flour, mould, and the like. — Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek

We shall have to work like lions, keeping the ideal before us, without caring whether "the wise ones praise or blame us". — Swami Vivekananda

What am I then ... ? Everything that I have seen, heard, and observed I have collected and exploited. My works have been nourished by countless different individuals, by innocent and wise ones, people of intelligence and dunces. Childhood, maturity and old age all have brought me their thoughts ... their perspectives on life. I have often reaped what others have sowed. My work is the work of a collective being that bears the name Goethe. — Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Keep this constantly in mind: that all sorts of people have died - all professions, all nationalities. Follow the thought all the way down to Philistion, Phoebus, and Origanion. Now extend it to other species. We have to go there too, where all of them have already gone: . . . the eloquent and the wise - Heraclitus, Pythagoras, Socrates . . . . . . the heroes of old, the soldiers and kings who followed them . . . . . . Eudoxus, Hipparchus, Archimedes . . . . . . the smart, the generous, the hardworking, the cunning, the selfish . . . . . . and even Menippus and his cohorts, who laughed at thewhole brief, fragile business. All underground for a long time now. And what harm does it do them? Or the others either - the ones whose names we don't even know? The only thing that isn't worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don't. — Marcus Aurelius

The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve. — Buddha

Any attempts at autobiography before the age of eighty seem pretty self-involved to me. There are a lot of smart middle aged people but not many wise ones. — Jimmy Buffett

The world belongs to us, the wise ones, we declare ... will we be pirates or captains, slumlords or godparents of time? Will we burn the furniture for heat or be good tenants? — Carl Safina

It's not given to human beings to have such talent that they can just know everything about everything all the time. But it is given to human beings who work hard at it - who look and sift the world for a mispriced bet - that they can occasionally find one. And the wise ones bet heavily when the world offers them that opportunity. They bet big when they have the odds. And the rest of the time they don't. It's just that simple. — Charlie Munger

We are all fools blessed with the knowledge that certain events will come to pass no matter what path we take to get there. The wise ones follow their angels while they may. — Alethea Kontis

We could all take heart. These are the wise ones who sit in front of us, to whom we prostrate when we do prostrations. We can prostrate to them as an example of our own wisdom mind of enlightened beings, but perhaps it's also good to prostrate to them as confused, mixed-up people with a lot of neurosis, just like ourselves. They are good examples of people who never gave up on themselves and were not afraid to be themselves, who therefore found their own genuine quality and their own true nature. The point is that our true nature is not some ideal that we have to live up to. It's who we are right now, and that's what we can make friends with and celebrate. — Pema Chodron

Those wise ones who see that consciousness within themselves is the same consciousness within all consciousness beings obtain eternal peace. — Anonymous

Now the two primal Spirits, who reveal themselves in vision as Twins, are the Better and the Bad, in thought and word and action. Between these two the wise ones chose aright; the foolish not so. — Zoroaster

I don't care what they say, we are only to love those who deserve our love and love them to the degree that they deserve it! You see, we are not God. Only God can love people undeserving without spoiling them. Us, on the other hand, can love someone so undeserving, and actually turn the person into someone so vile who is convinced that they were always entitled to every bit of it! Mamma mia! And what about giving? Yes, they all want us to give and expect nothing in return, they all have many scriptures to lay on our tables when it is they who are at the receiving end! But when the tables are turned and we are the ones at the receiving end, suddenly all the scriptures mean something else! And all the times they were on our end and we gave to them- suddenly are all forgotten! — C. JoyBell C.

Can an author with reason complain that he is cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to publish blasphemy, bawdry, or sedition?; all of which are equally prohibited in the freest governments, if they are wise and well-regulated ones. — Bill Vaughan