World's Greatest Wisdom Quotes & Sayings

Sixth letter : Choose your influences well

We do not move through our days alone or apart from the world around us. And we must always be aware of the things and the people we allow in our lives. It's a mark of wisdom to choose to spend time in those places that inspire and energize you. Whether in our work or within our personal lives, these most positive friends and peers will inspire us to be our greatest selves and to lead our largest lives. — Robin S. Sharma

Awareness ultimately has no boundaries. It exists in this world but endlessly goes beyond it. The world's great wisdom traditions all derive from a higher reality that is indescribable but can be experienced. This is the greatest wonder and source of awe. As the ancient Indian sages declare, "This isn't knowledge that you learn. It's knowledge that you become." When you fully absorb this insight, you know what it means to transcend. You don't need to travel anywhere; all of reality exists in you. You exemplify wholeness because you are united with everything and everyone around you. You exist to demonstrate that human beings can reach the infinite, and by simply being who you are, you help others get there. — Deepak Chopra

They knew a lot, the dead. How many times had she said to Harry they were the world's greatest untapped resource? It was true. All they'd seen, all they'd suffered, all they'd triumphed over - lost to a world in need of wisdom. And why? Because at a certain point in the evolution of the species a profound superstition was sewn into the human heart that the dead were to be considered sources of terror rather than enlightenment. — Clive Barker

One of life's greatest paradoxes is that it's in the crucible of pain and suffering that we become tender. Not all pain and suffering, certainly. If that were the case, the whole world would be tender, since no one escapes pain and suffering. To these elements must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love and the willingness to remain vulnerable. Together they lead to wisdom and tenderness. — Brennan Manning

The four had come to an exciting decision" during the six months of the blockade threatened by the authorities, they would make the ruins a laboratory, a demonstration of how well and happily men could live with virtually no machines. They saw now the common man's wisdom in wrecking practically everything. That was the way to do it, and the hell with moderation!
"All right, so we'll heat our water and cook our food and light and warm our homes with wood fires," said Lasher.
"And walk wherever we're going," said Finnerty.
"And read books instead of watching television," said von Neumann. "The Renaissance comes to upstate New York! We'll rediscover the two greatest wonders of the world, the human mind and hand. — Kurt Vonnegut

The Transformation of the World is lavishly reinforced with critical apparatus (that, too, must have been a labor of Hercules to translate
I honestly never expected to see this book in English), but by far its greatest attraction is the intelligence and more important the wisdom of its author. It's a towering achievement no serious reader should miss. — Steve Donoghue

When we live moment to moment, we place ourselves at the center of life, where infinite wisdom abides, rather than on the periphery, where things are forever changing and we are susceptible to the vagaries of the world. It is in our awareness each moment of our oneness with God that our inner peace and greatest strength lie. — Susan L. Taylor

Look at Andrew Roe's The Miracle Girl from one angle and you'll see an incisive and insightful critique of America at the millennium and today, investigating where we put our faith and why. The greatest of Roe's achievements in this captivating debut is a memorable feat of intense empathy. Roe inhabits characters who are desperate to believe and reveals to us their needs and wounds and hopes, and he does so with kindness, generosity, and wisdom. This is a novel about what it means to be human, to seek connection and hope and maybe even transcendence in the world around us. — Doug Dorst

It is of the greatest important in this world that a man should know himself, and the measure of his own strength and means; and he who knows that he has not a genius for fighting must learn how to govern by the arts of peace. — Niccolo Machiavelli

Your own Self-Realization is the greatest service you can render the world. — Ramana Maharshi

What it came down to was a search not for the most talent, the greatest brilliance, but for the fewest black marks, the fewest objections. The man who had made the fewest enemies in an era when forceful men espousing good causes had made many enemies: the Kennedys were looking for someone who made very small waves. They were looking for a man to fill the most important Cabinet post, a job requiring infinite qualities of intelligence, wisdom and sophistication, a knowledge of both this country and the world, and they were going at it as presidential candidates had often filled that other most crucial post, the Vice-Presidency, by choosing someone who had offended the fewest people. Everybody's number-two choice. — David Halberstam

When fully united, without ego or weakness, we become the greatest invisible force this world has ever witnessed. — Luis Marques

Earthly authority displays itself in giving orders, in magnificent apparel, in hordes of servitors, in sycophantic addresses; the authority of Jesus disposes of is, by contrast, spiritual, and expresses itself in serving, not being served, in seeking to be the least instead of the greatest, the last instead of the first, in finding wisdom in the innocence of children and truth in the foolishness of men rather than in those who pass for being sagacious and experienced in the world's ways. When we want to adulate men, we say they are godlike; but when God became Man, it was in the lineaments of the least of men. — Malcolm Muggeridge

One of the greatest glories of growing older is the willingness to ask why and, getting no good answer, deciding to follow my own inclinations and desires. Asking why is the way to wisdom. Why are we supposed to want possessions we don't need and work that seems beside the point and tight shoes and a fake tan? Why are we supposed to think new is better than old, youth and vigor better than long life and experience? Why are we supposed to turn our backs on those who have preceded us and to snipe at those who come after? When we were small children we asked 'Why?' constantly. Asking the question now is more a matter of testing the limits of what sometimes seems a narrow world. One of the useful things about age is realizing conventional wisdom is often simply inertia with a candy coating conformity. — Anna Quindlen

What God says is best, indeed is best, though all men in the world are against it. Seeing, then, that God prefers his religion; seeing God prefers a tender conscience; seeing they that make themselves fools for the kingdom of heaven are wisest; and that the poor man that loveth Christ is richer than the greatest man in the world that hates him: Shame, depart, thou art an enemy to my salvation. — John Bunyan

Creativity is one of your greatest gifts. It resides deep inside you impacting your every thought. It is attached to a never ending source and is one of the main aspects of who you are. Your very essence is as a creator. No one creates exactly like you do. Your thoughts and actions color the world. — Renae A. Sauter

I still believe that standing up for the truth of God is the greatest thing in the world. This is the end (purpose) of life. The end of life is not to be happy. The end of life is not to achieve pleasure and avoid pain. The end of life is to do the will of God, come what may. — Martin Luther King Jr.

For the fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being a pretense of knowing the unknown; and no one know whether death, which men in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is not this ignorance of a disgraceful sort, the ignorance which is the conceit that a man knows that he does not know? And in this respect only I believe myself to differ from men in general, and may perhaps claim to be wiser than they are: that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know ... — Socrates

For this fear of death is indeed the pretense of wisdom, and not real wisdom, being the appearance of knowing the unknown; since no one knows whether death, which they in their fear apprehend to be the greatest evil, may not be the greatest good. Is there not here conceit of knowledge, which is a disgraceful sort of ignorance? And this is the point in which, as I think, I am superior to men in general, and in which I might perhaps fancy myself wiser than other men, - that whereas I know but little of the world below, I do not suppose that I know: but I do know that injustice and disobedience to a better, whether God or man, is evil and dishonorable, and I will never fear or avoid a possible good rather than a certain evil. — Socrates

Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel are in my opinion not philosophers; for they lack the first requirement of a philosopher, namely a seriousness and honesty of inquiry. They are merely sophists who wanted to appear to be rather than to be something. They sought not truth, but their own interest and advancement in the world. Appointments from governments, fees and royalties from students and publishers, and, as a means to this end, the greatest possible show and sensation in their sham philosophy-such were
the guiding stars and inspiring genii of those disciples of wisdom. And so they have not passed the entrance examination and cannot be admitted into the venerable company of thinkers for the human race.
Nevertheless they have excelled in one thing, in the art of beguiling the public and of passing themselves off for what they are not; and this undoubtedly requires talent, yet not philosophical. — Arthur Schopenhauer

Books, purchasable at low cost, permit us to interrogate the past with high accuracy; to tap the wisdom of our species; to understand the point of view of others, and not just those in power; to contemplate
with the best teachers
the insights, painfully extracted from Nature, of the greatest minds that ever were, drawn from the entire planet and from all of our history. They allow people long dead to talk inside our heads. Books can accompany us everywhere. Books are patient where we are slow to understand, allow us to go over the hard parts as many times as we wish, and are never critical of our lapses. Books are key to understanding the world and participating in a democratic society. — Carl Sagan

In world mythology, there are countless examples of tragic characters whose greatest strength is also the source of their undoing. But the ancient Greeks and Romans also held the view that acceptance is the beginning of wisdom. — Simon Van Booy

I give you soul. I give you wisdom and light and music and a bit of laughter. Also, I am the world's greatest horseplayer. — Charles Bukowski

You are an explorer, and you represent our species, and the greatest good you can do is to bring back a new idea, because our world is endangered by the absence of good ideas. Our world is in crisis because of the absence of consciousness. — Terence McKenna

Eternal life is the most important thing in all the world for which you and I should work and hope someday to attain ... the person who attains eternal life is exceedingly rich. Seek not for riches but for wisdom ... he that hath eternal life is rich. Eternal life is the greatest of all of the gifts of God. — Milton R. Hunter

We live in the midst of the greatest scientific civilization in the history of the world. But the greatest wisdom walking our streets is not in any laboratory scientist, but the wisdom of Jesus Christ. — Norman Vincent Peale

Just as the telescope and microscope show us that there is order and design in all the works of God's hand, from the greatest planet down to the least insect, so does the Bible teach us that there is wisdom, order and design in all the events of our daily life. There is no such thing as 'chance', 'luck', or 'accident' in the Christian journey through this world. All is arranged and appointed by God: and all things are 'working together' for the believer's good. — J.C. Ryle

It is wonderful how preposterously the affairs of the world are managed. We assemble parliaments and councils to have the benefit of collected wisdom, but we necessarily have, at the same time, the inconvenience of their collected passions, prejudices and private interests: for regulating commerce an assembly of great men is the greatest fool on earth — Benjamin Franklin

God doth not govern the world only by his will as an absolute monarch, but by his wisdom and goodness as a tender father. It is not his greatest pleasure to show his sovereign power, or his inconceivable wisdom, but his immense goodness, to which he makes the other attributes subservient. — Stephen Charnock

Esteemed friend, citizen of Athens, the greatest city in the world, so outstanding in both intelligence and power, aren't you ashamed to care so much to make all the money you can, and to advance your reputation and prestige
while for truth and wisdom and the improvement of your soul you have no care or worry? — Socrates

Being a word wielder is far better than being a sword wielder. Greatest thing is you can still change the world. — Chandan Sharma

Books tap the wisdom of our species
the greatest minds, the best teachers
from all over the world and from all our history. And they're patient. — Carl Sagan

The greatest managers in the world do not have much in common. But despite their differences, these great managers do share one thing: Before they do anything else, they first break all the rules of conventional wisdom. — Marcus Buckingham

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

The greatest solution of all is to live and work in partnership with yourself, your family and friends, your work and community, your nation, your world, nature, and spirit. — Marc Allen