Famous Quotes & Sayings

Gian Carlo Menotti

A man only becomes wise when he begins to calculate the approximate depth of his ignorance.

Giambattista Vico

Political Science carries inseparably with it the study of piety, and that he who is not pious cannot be truly wise.

Harold Pinter

I never think of myself as wise. I think of myself as possessing a critical intelligence which I intend to allow to operate.

James Boswell

Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so thathe insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence. Addison's style, like a light wine, pleases everybody from the first. Johnson's, like a liquor of more body, seems too strong at first, but, by degrees, is highly relished.

James G. Frazer

If mankind had always been logical and wise, history would not be a long chronicle of folly and crime.

Jean-Paul Marat

[We need] someone bold, to put himself at the head of the disaffected and rally them against the oppressor. Some great character who could captivate the people... someone wise who could direct the actions of an unbridled and floating multitude.

Jean-Paul Marat

To form a truly free constitution, that's to say, truly just and wise, the first point, the main point, the capital point, is that all the laws be agreed on by the people, after considered reflection, and especially having taken time to see what's at stake...

Giacomo Leopardi

There's no greater sign of being a poor philosopher and wise man than wanting all of life to be wise and philosophical.

Giacomo Casanova

The spirit of rebellion is present in every great city, and the great task of wise government is to keep it dormant, for if it wakes it is a torrent which no dam can hold back.

Giacomo Casanova

The man who has sufficient power over himself to wait until his nature has recovered its even balance is the truly wise man, but such beings are seldom met with.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

Seeing, observing, listening, these are the greatest acts

Glenda Jackson

I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Where does a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. But what does he do if there is no forest? He grows a forest to hide it in.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

And my haunting instinct that somehow good was not merely a tool to be used, but a relic to be guarded, like the goods from Crusoe's ship--even that had been the wild whisper of something originally wise, for, according to Christianity, we were indeed the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

THERE are no wise few; for in all men rages the folly of the Fall. Take your strongest, happiest, handsomest, best born, best bred, best instructed men on earth and give them special power for half an hour and because they are men they will begin to [perform] badly ...

Frank Zappa

A wise man once said, never discuss philosophy or politics in a disco environment.

Frank Herbert

This wise man observed that wealth is a tool of freedom. But the pursuit of wealth is the way to slavery.

Frank Herbert

To endure oneself may be the hardest task in the universe. You cannot hire a wise man or any other intellect to solve it for you. There's no writ of inquest or calling of witness to provide answers.

Frank Herbert

A world is supported by four things: the learning of wise, the justice of great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.

Frank Herbert

Every civilization must contend with an unconscious force which can block, betray, or countermand almost any conscious intention of the collectivity.

Frank Herbert

When a wise man does not understand, he says: "I do not understand." The fool and the uncultured are ashamed of their ignorance. They remain silent when a question could bring them wisdom.

Frank Herbert

It is a wise man that does know the contented man is never poor, whilst the discontented man is never rich.

Frank Herbert

If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.

Frank Herbert

The gravest error a thinking person can make is to believe that one particular version of history is absolute fact. History is recorded by a series of observers, none of whom is impartial. The facts are distorted by sheer passage of time and thousands of years of humanity's dark ages, deliberate misrepresentations by religious sects, and the inevitable corruption that comes from an accumulation of careless mistakes. The wise person, then, views history as a set of lessons to be learned, choices and ramifications to be considered and discussed, and mistakes that should never again be made.

George Grosz

I had grown up in a humanist atmosphere, and war to me was never anything but horror, mutilation and senseless destruction, and I knew that many great and wise people felt the same way about it.

George Henry Lewes

It will often be a question when a man is or is not wise in advancing unpalatable opinions, or in preaching heresies; but it can never be a question that a man should be silent if unprepared to speak the truth as he conceives it.

George Henry Lewes

The mathematician who is without value to mathematicians, the thinker who is obscure or meaningless to thinkers, the dramatist who fails to move the pit, may be wise, may be eminent, but as an author he has failed.

Harold B. Lee

The Constitution of the United States has been mentioned...as the basis of wise decisions in fundamental principles as applied to all matters pertaining to law and order, because it was framed by men whom God raised up for this very purpose. But in addition to that inspired document, we must always keep in mind that the greatest weapons that can be forged against any false philosophy are the positive teachings of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Harold Bloom

Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch is a wise, humane, and delightful study of what some regard as the best novel in English. Mead has discovered an original and highly personal way to make herself an inhabitant both of the book and of George Eliot's imaginary city. Though I have read and taught the book these many years I find myself desiring to go back to it after reading Rebecca Mead's work.

Haim Ginott

Wise parents know that fighting a teenager, like fighting a riptide, is inviting doom.

Haim Ginott

To sense when a teenager needs understanding and when misunderstanding is a difficult and delicate task. The sad truth is that no matter how wise we are, we cannot be right for any length of time in our teenagers' eyes.

Gus Van Sant

There's a lot of films that have relatively rigid road maps because they have a script and others that are less rigid because they have less of a script, like 'Elephant.' The road map becomes more interpretive, maybe, than one with a detailed script. Editing-wise, they all have their problems.

Greg Mortenson

A wise man from my home once told me that these mountains have seen far too much suffering and killing, and that each rock and every boulder you see represents a mujahadeen who died fighting either the Russians or the Taliban. Then the man went on to say that now that the fighting is finished, it is time to build a new era of peace-and the first step in that process is to take up the stones and start turning them into schools.