Tao Te Ching

The Power of Goodness, the Wisdom Beyond Words
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"A medieval missionary tells that he has found the point where heaven and Earth meet..." Anonymous - Camille Flammarion, L'Atmosphère: Météorologie Populaire, 1888

Wisdom

Most religions, philosophies, institutions, and individuals think they can define “wisdom.” Once something becomes defined though, it separates from the immediacy of our experience and becomes a conceptual illusion. It becomes a “Golden Chain” imprisoning our awareness in a conventional, status quo box. From the point of view looking out of that prison, all true wisdom seems like “Crazy Wisdom.”
It would be easy to identify many of Lao Tzu’s poems translated here as well as many of the quotes we use as “wisdom.” At best though, they are only signposts pointing toward true wisdom, inspirations enticing us to make the leap from the Words to the Sense.

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Quotes (113)

“For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home.”

Zarathushtra زرتشت‎‎ 628 – 551 BCE via Dinshaw Jamshedji Irani
(Zoroaster)

from Avesta

Themes: Wisdom

“It takes a wise man to recognize a wise man.”

Xenophanes Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος 570 – 475 BCE
(Xenophanes of Colophon)
from Fragments

Themes: Wisdom

“To know, is to know that you know nothing, that is the meaning of true knowledge.”

Confucius 孔丘 551 – 479 BCE
(Kongzi, Kǒng Zǐ)
History's most influential "failure"

Themes: Wisdom

67. Three Treasures

“As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.”

Confucius 孔丘 551 – 479 BCE
(Kongzi, Kǒng Zǐ)
History's most influential "failure"

Themes: Water Wisdom

8. Like Water

“Wisdom means when you know something, recognizing that you know it; when you do not know, recognizing that you don't know.”

Confucius 孔丘 551 – 479 BCE via Arthur Waley
(Kongzi, Kǒng Zǐ)
History's most influential "failure"
from Analects

Themes: Wisdom

“Wisdom comes only through suffering.”

Aeschylus Αἰσχύλος 525 – 455 BCE
The Father of Tragedy

Themes: Wisdom Suffering

“In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”

Aeschylus Αἰσχύλος 525 – 455 BCE via Edith Hamilton
The Father of Tragedy
from Agamemnon

Themes: Suffering Wisdom

“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness”

Sophocles Σοφοκλῆς 497 – 405 BCE
“The Wise and Honored One”

Themes: Happiness Wisdom

“When understanding proceeds from truthfulness, one truly understands.”

Zisi 子思 481 – 402 BCE via Daniel K. Gardner
(Kong Ji or Tzu-Ssu)
Confucius' grandson and early influence on Neo-Confucianism
from Doctrine of the Mean, Maintaining Perfect Balance, Zhongyong 中庸

Themes: Wisdom

“To stand from Fear set free, to breathe and wait; to hold a hand uplifted over Hate; what else is Wisdom?”

Euripides 480 – 406 BCE via Philip Vellacott, Shan Dao
Ancient humanitarian influence continuing today
from Bacchae Βάκχαι

Themes: Wisdom Fear Hate

“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 469 – 399 BCE
One of the most powerful influences on Western Civilization

53. Shameless Thieves

“Many much-learned men have no intelligence.”

Democritus Dēmókritos 460 – 370 BCE
Father of modern science and greatest of ancient philosophers

Themes: Paradox Wisdom

81. Journey Without Goal

“Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.”

Isocrates Ἰσοκράτης 436 – 338 BCE
from Ad Demonicum

“Until philosophers are kings or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, no, nor the human race.”

Plato Πλάτων 428 – 348 BCE via Edith Hamilton

Themes: Philosophy Wisdom

“The wise person does not lose their child-like heart.”

Mencius 孟子 372 – 289 BCE
(Mengzi)
from Book of Mencius 孟子

Themes: Wisdom

28. Turning Back

“The sage is the world’s greatest weapon but not one that is known to the world.”

Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE
(Zhuangzi)

Themes: Wisdom Anonymity

36. The Small, Dark Light

“Of all the things that wisdom provides for the happiness of the whole life, by far the most important is friendship... the chief concerns of the right-minded person are wisdom and friendship of which the former is a mortal benefit, the latter an immortal one.”

Epicurus ɛpɪˈkjɔːrəs 341 – 270 BCE via Diogenes Laërtius
Western Buddha
from Maxims

“The wise man is but little favored by fortune; but his reason procures him the greatest and most valuable goods, and these he does enjoy, and will enjoy the whole of his life.”

Epicurus ɛpɪˈkjɔːrəs 341 – 270 BCE via Diogenes Laërtius
Western Buddha
from Maxims

“Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and profitable unto them that see the sun.”

Koheleth 1 via Arthur Schopenhauer
from Ecclesiastes קֹהֶלֶת‎

“No man was ever wise by chance.”

Seneca ˈsɛnɪkə 4 BCE – 65 CE
(Lucius Annaeus)

Themes: Wisdom

“If you wish to know how much preferable wisdom is to gold, then observe: if you change gold you get silver for it, but your gold is gone; but if you exchange one sort of wisdom for another, you obtain fresh knowledge, and at the same time keep what you possessed before.”

Rabbinic Sages 20 – 200 CE
from Talmud

Themes: Wealth Wisdom

“Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.”

Plutarch 46 – 120 CE
(Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus)

2. The Wordless Teachings

“There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all are essential in the world; it is not bad that they should alternate.”

Hadrian 76 – 180 CE

Themes: Wisdom

“Wisdom has the task of presenting all things as Universals, stripped of matter for treatment by Understanding.”

Plotinus 204 – 249 CE via Stephen MacKenna, B.S. Page, Shan Dao
from Enneads Ἐννεάδες Plotinus / Porphyry

“Not engaging in ignorance is wisdom.”

Bodhidharma 菩提達磨 1
(Daruma)

Themes: Wisdom

12. This Over That

“Ignorance and wisdom are identical, not different.”

Dazu Huike 487 – 593 CE
(Dz Huk)

2. The Wordless Teachings

“Wisdom means dissolving the dualism of all opposites, seeing the non-existence of relativity”

Hui Hai 大珠慧海 788 – 831 CE via John Blofeld, Shan Dao
from Essential Gate for Entry Into Sudden Enlightenment (Tun-wu ju dao yao-men)

Themes: Wisdom

“Like a tightrope walker with perfect balance, journey on the high rope joining skillful means and wisdom.”

Bhikṣanapa བྷི་ཀྵ་ན་པ། 940 CE – via Keith Dowman, Shan Dao
("Siddha Two-Teeth")
Mahasiddha #61

“Today I cut down the tree of unknowing.”

Cauraṅgipa ཙཽ་རངྒི་པ། 1 via Keith Dowman
("The Dismembered Stepson")
Mahasiddha #10
from Masters of Mahamudra

Themes: Wisdom

24. Unnecessary Baggage

“Let the light of wisdom pervade everywhere.”

Nāropā 955 – 1040 CE via Nalanda Translation Committee

Themes: Wisdom

“Man is wise only while in search of wisdom; when he imagines he has attained it, he is a fool.”

Solomon ibn Gabirol שלמה בן יהודה אבן גבירול 1021 – 1070 CE via Ascher
(Avicebron)
from Choice of Pearls

Themes: Wisdom Illusion

65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness

“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?”

Machig Labdrön མ་གཅིག་ལབ་སྒྲོན། 1055 – 1149 CE

“Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.”

Gampopa སྒམ་པོ་པ། 1079 – 1153 CE via Herbert Guenther
(Sönam Rinchen, Dakpo Rinpoche)
from Jewel Ornament of Liberation

Themes: Confusion Wisdom

32. Uncontrived Awareness

“The primal wisdom, silent but also glorious, responds to conditions.”

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE via Dan Leighton
(Shōgaku)
from Cultivating the Emplty Field

“False thinking stops and stillness necessarily arises, stillness arises and wisdom appears, wisdom arises and stillness necessarily disappears”

Hóngzhì Zhēngjué 宏智正覺 1091 – 1157 CE via Dan Leighton
(Shōgaku)
from Cultivating the Emplty Field

“If someone denies the existence of the effects arranged according to the causes, or if their wisdom cannot understand it, they have no true knowledge.”

Averroes, Ibn Rushd ابن رشد‎‎ 1126 – 1198 CE via Shan Dao

Themes: Wisdom Karma

“Wisdom creates power.”

Sakya Pandita ས་སྐྱ་པཎྜ་ཏ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྒྱལ་མཚན། 1182 – 1251 CE via John T. Davenport, Shan Dao #25
(Kunga Gyeltsen)
from Ordinary Wisdom, Sakya Legshe (Jewel Treasury of Good Advice)

Themes: Power Wisdom

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”

Rumi مولانا جلال‌الدین محمد بلخی 1207 – 1283 CE
(Rumi Mawlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Balkhī)
from Masnavi مثنوي معنوي‎‎) "Rhyming Couplets of Profound Spiritual Meaning”

Themes: Wisdom

29. Not Doing

“Those who understand yet seem not to understand are the wisest of people… Those who don’t understand yet think they understand are, in fact, the stupidest of people.”

Wu Cheng 吴澄 1249 – 1333 CE
"Mr. Grass Hut"
from Tao-te-chen-ching-chu

71. Sick of Sickness

“With the perception of the true nature of phenomena, wisdom arises continuously. Not created or achieved and like the sun in the sky, it abides timelessly, amazing and superb.

Longchenpa ཀློང་ཆེན་རབ་འབྱམས་པ། 1308 – 1364 CE via Richard Barron, Shan Dao editing
(Longchen Rabjampa, Drimé Özer)
from The Basic Space of Phenomena

Themes: Wisdom

“Nobody is further from true wisdom than those people with their grand titles, learned bonnets, splendid sashes and bejeweled rings, who profess to be wisdom’s peak”

Erasmus 1466 – 1536 CE
(Desiderius Roterodamus)
"Greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance"

Themes: Wisdom Fame

“There are 3 classes of intellects: one that comprehends by itself; one that appreciates what others comprehend; and a third that neigher comprehends by itself nor by the showing of others. The first is excellent, the second good, the third useless.”

Machiavelli 1469 – 1527 CE via W.K. Marriott
(Niccolò Machiavelli)
from The Prince

Themes: Wisdom

“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”

Machiavelli 1469 – 1527 CE
(Niccolò Machiavelli)
from The Prince

Themes: Wisdom Wisdom

“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”

Machiavelli 1469 – 1527 CE
(Niccolò Machiavelli)
from The Prince

Themes: Wisdom Wisdom

“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”

Montaigne 1533 – 1592 CE
Grandfather of the Enlightenment

10. The Power of Goodness

“Those who seek the Tao begin by using wisdom to eliminate desires… Once their desires are gone, they eliminate wisdom… Thus by doing nothing, the sage can do great things… those who would rule the world should know the value of not being busy.”

Deqing 1546 – 1623 CE
(Te-Ch’ing)

48. Unlearning

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”

William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616 CE
from As You Like It

Themes: Wisdom Illusion

67. Three Treasures

“Wisdom is acquired, not by reading books, but but by reading people.”

Thomas Hobbes 1588 – 1679 CE
from Leviathan

Themes: Books Wisdom

“The first great rule of life - to put up with things – is half of all wisdom… We often have to put up with the most from those on whom we most depend… Out of patience comes forth peace, the priceless boon that is the happilness of the world.”

Balthasar Gracian 1601 – 1658 CE via Joseph Jacobs, Shan Dao chapter #159
from Art of Worldly Wisdom

61. Lying Low

“An ounce of wisdom is worth more than a ton of cleverness.”

Balthasar Gracian 1601 – 1658 CE via Joseph Jacobs, #92
from Art of Worldly Wisdom

Themes: Wisdom

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.”

Alexander Pope 1688 – 1744 CE
Second most quoted English writer

Themes: Wisdom Fear

“Silence is not always a sign of wisdom but babbling is ever a mark of folly.”

Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790 CE
from Poor Richard's Almanack

37. Nameless Simplicity

“Who is wise? He that learns from everyone. Who is powerful? He that governs his passions. Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.”

Benjamin Franklin 1706 – 1790 CE
from Poor Richard's Almanack

Themes: Wisdom

63. Easy as Hard

“Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them in others.”

Edward Gibbon 1737 – 1794 CE
from Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire

“The first step toward wisdom is to question everything - and the last is to accept everything.”

Georg Christoph Lichtenberg 1742 – 1799 CE via Shan Dao
One of history’s best aphorists

“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”

Thomas Jefferson 1743 – 1826 CE
from Notes on the State of Virginia

17. True Leaders

“Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.”

Abigail Adams 1744 – 1818 CE
One of the most exceptional women in American history

Themes: Wisdom Problems

“It is unthinkable that wisdom should ever be popular.”

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 1749 – 1832 CE via Eckermann
from Faust, part I

Themes: Wisdom

41. Distilled Life

“Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of wisdom.”

William Godwin 1756 – 1836 CE via Shan Dao
Provocative and influential social, political, and literary critic
from Enquiry Concerning Political Justice

Themes: Freedom Wisdom

“A sadder and a wiser man he rose the morrow morn.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1772 – 1834 CE
from Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Themes: Wisdom

“As the biggest library in disorder is not as useful as a small, well organized one; a vast accumulation of knowledge is of far less value than a much smaller amount thought through and compared to personal experience and other knowledge.”

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE via R.J. Hollingdale, Shan Dao
from Parerga and Paralipomena, "Appendices" and "Omissions"

“Genius always rises like a palm-tree above the soil in which it is rooted.”

Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

61. Lying Low

“Wisdom has its root in goodness, not goodness its root in wisdom.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882 CE
Champion of individualism

Themes: Wisdom

62. Basic Goodness

“That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often become the height of wisdom in the next.”

John Stuart Mill 1806 – 1873 CE

“All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.”

Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862 CE via Odell Shepard
Father of environmentalism and America's first yogi
from Journal, 1839

“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”

Leo Tolstoy 1828 – 1910 CE

Themes: Wisdom

67. Three Treasures

“Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten without it... gold lies at the root of wisdom”

Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902 CE
Iconoclastic philosopher, artist, composer, author, and evolutionary theorist
from Note-Books (1912)

Themes: Money Wisdom

“perhaps the religious systems of all countries are now more or less an attempt to uphold the unfathomable and unconscious instinctive wisdom of millions of past generations, against the comparatively shallow, consciously reasoned, and ephemeral conclusions drawn from that of the last thirty or forty.”

Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902 CE
Iconoclastic philosopher, artist, composer, author, and evolutionary theorist
from Erewhon

Themes: Wisdom

“Wisdom leads to unity, but ignorance to separation.”

Ramakrishna 1836 – 1886 CE

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”

William James 1842 – 1910 CE
"Father of American psychology”

Themes: Wisdom Forget

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.”

Anatole France 1844 – 1924 CE
(Jacques Anatole Thibault)

Themes: Wisdom Humility

65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness

“What is the part of wisdom? To dream with one eye open; to be detached from the world without hostility to it; to welcome fugitive beauties and pity fugitive sufferings; and not to pile up treasures, except in heaven.”

Santayana, George 1863 – 1952 CE
(Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás)
Powerfully influential, true-to-himself philosopher/poet
from War Shrines

Themes: Wisdom

“We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”

Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from In Search of Lost Time

Themes: Travel Wisdom

“We cannot be taught wisdom, we have to discover it for ourselves by a journey which no one can undertake fir us, an effort which no one can spare us.”

Marcel Proust 1871 – 1922 CE
Apostle of Ordinary Mind
from In Search of Lost Time

Themes: Wisdom

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970 CE
“20th century Voltaire”
from Unpopular Essays

Themes: Wisdom

“wisdom is... more needed now than ever before, because the rapid growth of technique has made ancient habits of thought and action more inadequate than in any earlier time.”

Bertrand Russell 1872 – 1970 CE
“20th century Voltaire”
from Unpopular Essays

“My own understanding is the sole treasure I possess, and the greatest Though infinitely small and fragile in comparison with the powers of darkness, it is still a light my only light.”

Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE
Insightful shamanistic scientist
from Memories, Dreams, Reflections

Themes: Wisdom

“An optimist is a person who sees a green light everywhere, while a pessimist sees only the red stoplight... the truly wise person is colorblind.”

Albert Schweitzer 1875 – 1965 CE

Themes: Middle Way Wisdom

“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else”

Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962 CE
from Siddhartha

41. Distilled Life

“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”

Eleanor Roosevelt 1884 – 1962 CE

Themes: Wisdom Livelihood

81. Journey Without Goal

“a subtle similarity between… wisdom and humor… both may come from seeing things in perspective.”

Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
from The Age of Reason Begins

“Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”

Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE

Themes: Science Wisdom

1. The Unnamed

“Wisdom can never be transmitted by words, only by examples and experience.”

Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
from Heroes of History

“Have we given ourselves more freedom than our intelligence can digest?”

Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
from Lessons of History

Themes: Freedom Wisdom

“We are being destroyed by knowledge, which has made us drunk with our power. And we shall not be saved without wisdom.”

Will Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
Philosophy apostle and popularizer of history's lessons
from Pleasures of Philosophy

Themes: Wisdom

“What thoughtful person has not at 50 discarded the dogmas he swore by in his youth and will not at 80 smile at the 'mature' views of his middle age?”

Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE
from Age of Napoleon

Themes: Wisdom

“The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension.”

Ezra Pound 1885 – 1972 CE

Themes: Wisdom

“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965 CE

65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness

“Wisdom begins with the elimination of uncertainties... Knowing what we cannot do, we do what we can, and arrange ourselves accordingly.. common sense and wistfulness about living, are the ingredients of human wisdom.”

Lín Yǔtáng 林語堂 1895 – 1976 CE
from On the Wisdom of America, 1950

Themes: Wisdom

“The ability to observe without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence”

Krishnamurti 1895 – 1986 CE
(Jiddu Krishnamurti)

Themes: Wisdom

“[We need to] recapture and re-emphasize and bring to bear upon present problems the wisdom that lies in the work of our greatest thinkers”

Robert Hutchins 1899 – 1977 CE
(Robert Maynard Hutchins)
from The Great Conversation

Themes: Wisdom

“It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry 1900 – 1944 CE

Themes: Wisdom

33. Know Yourself

“The world has messages and myths help us read them.”

Joseph Campbell 1904 – 1987 CE via Shan Dao
Great translator of ancient myth into modern symbols
from Power of Myth

Themes: Wisdom

“The true wisdom of life is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.”

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 1904 – 1971 CE
from Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind

Themes: Wisdom

“The neglect, indeed the rejection, of wisdom has gone so far that most of our intellectuals have not even the faintest idea what the term could mean. As a result, they always tend to try and cure a disease by intensifying its causes. The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure.”

E. F. Schumacher 1911 – 1977 CE
The “People's Economist”

Themes: Karma Wisdom

77. Stringing a Bow

“But what is wisdom? Where can it be found? Here we come to the crux of the matter: it can be read about in numerous publications but it can be found only inside oneself.”

E. F. Schumacher 1911 – 1977 CE
The “People's Economist”
from Small Is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered

Themes: Wisdom

59. The Gardening of Spirit

“No one is really working for peace unless he is working primarily for the restoration of wisdom… From an economic point of view, the central concept of wisdom is permanence. We must study an economics of permanence.”

E. F. Schumacher 1911 – 1977 CE
The “People's Economist”

78. Water

“The only unqualifiedly good is extended vision, the enlargement of one’s understanding of the ultimate nature of things.”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE
from World's Religions

Themes: Virtue Wisdom

“The larger the island of wisdom, the longer the shoreline of wonder.”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE
from World's Religions

“Daily the world grows smaller, leaving [wisdom] the only place where peace can find a home.”

Huston Smith 1919 – 2016 CE

Themes: Peace Wisdom

“To look everywhere and see nothing, that's the aim of wisdom”

Jack Kerouac 1922 – 1969 CE
from Some of the Dharma

Themes: Wisdom

“Emotional intelligence, more than any other factor, more than I.Q. or expertise, accounts for 85% to 90% of success at work… I.Q. is a threshold competence. You need it, but it doesn’t make you a star. Emotional intelligence can.”

Warren Bennis 1925 – 2014 CE
Authentic Leadership pioneering thought leader

Themes: Success Wisdom

“Wisdom is innate, not distant from ourselves. It’s what we are.”

Gesshin Myoko Roshi 1931 – 1999 CE
Moon heart miraculous light

Themes: Wisdom

25. The Mother of All Things

“Reading quotes and words of wisdom from ancient and modern sages is like taking vitamins, a kind of psychological preventative medicine.”

Shan Dao 山道 1933 CE –

“Wisdom is connected with looking, and knowledge is connected with seeing.”

Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE
from Illusion's Game

Themes: Wisdom No Trace

47. Effortless Success

“The more I see, the less I know for sure.”

John Lennon 1940 – 1980 CE

Themes: Wisdom

38. Fruit Over Flowers
65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness

“Wisdom lies in understanding that we can control only our minds, what we think with our minds, and our actions based on those thoughts.”

J. Rufus Fears 1945 – 2012 CE
from Books That Made History

Themes: Wisdom

“Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.”

Bob Marley 1945 – 1981 CE

Themes: Wealth Wisdom Fame

“Compassion without wisdom is bondage. Wisdom without compassion is bondage. Compassion and wisdom are the two wings of enlightenment.”

B. Alan Wallace 1950 CE –
(Bruce Alan Wallace)
from Buddhism with an Attitude

Themes: Compassion Wisdom

“the excruciating ache of the awakening love for wisdom… the sacred origin not just of religion but also everything else, of science, technology, education, law, medicine, logic architecture, ordinary daily life”

Peter Kingsley 1953 CE –
from A Story Waiting to Pierce You

“It seemed to me that the wisdom of the ancients could not have simply vanished. Nothing simply vanishes... this energy must be going somewhere. That was when I realized that there must be other places, other worlds. And so I set myself to find them.”

Susanna Clarke 1959 CE –
from Piranesi

“When the affliction of negative emotions is blazing like fire, then wisdom is also blazing like fire.”

Mingyur Rinpoche 1975 CE –
Modern-day Mahasiddha

from In Love With the World

Themes: Wisdom Equanimity

“Get rid of 'holiness' and abandon 'wisdom' - the people will benefit a hundredfold.”

Yi-Ping Ong 1978 CE – via Charles Muller
from Tao Te Ching - Introduction and Notes

Themes: Wisdom

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