Tao Te Ching
"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.
Quotes (114)
“As the water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it, so a wise man adapts himself to circumstances.”
“Wisdom means when you know something, recognizing that you know it; when you do not know, recognizing that you don't know.”
“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.”
“To stand from Fear set free, to breathe and wait; to hold a hand uplifted over Hate; what else is Wisdom?”
“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?”
“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.”
“The sage is the world’s greatest weapon but not one that is known to the world.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Wisdom is good with an inheritance, and profitable unto them that see the sun.”
“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.”
“Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.”
“There is more than one kind of wisdom, and all are essential in the world; it is not bad that they should alternate.”
“Wisdom has the task of presenting all things as Universals, stripped of matter for treatment by Understanding.”
“Ignorance and wisdom are identical, not different.”
“Wisdom means dissolving the dualism of all opposites, seeing the non-existence of relativity”
“Like a tightrope walker with perfect balance, journey on the high rope joining skillful means and wisdom.”
“Man is wise only while in search of wisdom; when he imagines he has attained it, he is a fool.”
“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?”
“Grant your blessing so that confusion may dawn as wisdom.”
“False thinking stops and stillness necessarily arises, stillness arises and wisdom appears, wisdom arises and stillness necessarily disappears”
“The primal wisdom, silent but also glorious, responds to conditions.”
“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.”
“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”
“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.”
“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.
”
“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”
“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.”
“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”
“Wisdom consists of knowing how to distinguish the nature of trouble, and in choosing the lesser evil.”
“Learned we may be with another man's learning: we can only be wise with wisdom of our own.”
“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.”
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
“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.”
“Silence is not always a sign of wisdom but babbling is ever a mark of folly.”
“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.”
“Justice, humanity, or political wisdom, are qualities they are too little acquainted with in themselves, to appreciate them in others.”
“The first step toward wisdom is to question everything - and the last is to accept everything.”
“I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.”
“Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.”
“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.”
“Genius always rises like a palm-tree above the soil in which it is rooted.”
“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.”
“That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often become the height of wisdom in the next.”
“All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.”
“We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human 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.”
“Though wisdom cannot be gotten for gold, still less can it be gotten without it... gold lies at the root of wisdom”
“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.”
“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.”
“We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
“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.”
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of 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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Wisdom cannot be imparted. Wisdom that a wise man attempts to impart always sounds like foolishness to someone else”
“Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.”
“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?”
“a subtle similarity between… wisdom and humor… both may come from seeing things in perspective.”
“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.”
“Wisdom can never be transmitted by words, only by examples and experience.”
“We are being destroyed by knowledge, which has made us drunk with our power. And we shall not be saved without wisdom.”
“Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”
“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.”
“[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”
“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.”
“The true wisdom of life is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Daily the world grows smaller, leaving [wisdom] the only place where peace can find a home.”
“The only unqualifiedly good is extended vision, the enlargement of one’s understanding of the ultimate nature of things.”
“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.”
“Reading quotes and words of wisdom from ancient and modern sages is like taking vitamins, a kind of psychological preventative medicine.”
“Wisdom is connected with looking, and knowledge is connected with seeing.”
“The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
38. Fruit Over Flowers
65. Simplicity: the Hidden Power of Goodness
“Don't gain the world and lose your soul; wisdom is better than silver or gold.”
“Wisdom lies in understanding that we can control only our minds, what we think with our minds, and our actions based on those thoughts.”
“Compassion without wisdom is bondage. Wisdom without compassion is bondage. Compassion and wisdom are the two wings of enlightenment.”
“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”
“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.”
“When the affliction of negative emotions is blazing like fire, then wisdom is also blazing like fire.”
“If we are so wise, why are we so self-destructive? We are at one and the same time both the smartest and the stupidest animals on earth.”
“Get rid of 'holiness' and abandon 'wisdom' - the people will benefit a hundredfold.”
Comments (0)
Log in to comment.