Wisdom quotes, with sources

Nonviolence is the law of our species as violence is the law of the brute.

It is Swaraj when we learn to rule ourselves.

Well done is better than well said.

Lost time is never found again…

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

The best way of avenging thyself is not to become like [the wrong-doer].

…the unexamined life is not worth living…

The superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions.

He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.

Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none.

This above all: to thine own self be true.

Goodness is the only investment that never fails.

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

There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Money often costs too much.

When in doubt, tell the truth.

Enjoy the land, but own it not.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

Character is higher than intellect.

We are not made for law, but for love.

Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.

By doing just actions we come to be just.

The world globes itself in a drop of dew.

A sense of humour is a sense of proportion.

A great man is always willing to be little.

In wildness is the preservation of the world.

Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults.

He who stands on his tiptoes does not stand firm.

Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer?

Important principles may, and must, be inflexible.

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.

Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights.

Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom.

He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty.

Of things some are in our power, and others are not.

In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.

Silence is deep as Eternity; Speech is shallow as Time.

Truth is generally the best vindication against slander.

That man is the richest whose pleasures are the cheapest.

A disagreement may be the shortest cut between two minds.

If you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything.

He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.

The truth is the kindest thing we can give folks in the end.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.

We are not to be anxious about living, but about living well.

The most manifest sign of wisdom is a continual cheerfulness.

Purity and impurity belong to oneself, no one can purify another.

Always be ready to speak your mind, and a base man will avoid you.

The superior man thinks of virtue; the small man thinks of comfort.

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

Gravity is the root of lightness; stillness, the ruler of movement.

It takes two to speak the truth — one to speak, and another to hear.

The mind stretches an hour to a century, and dwarfs an age to an hour.

The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know that he is his own.

To live is so startling, it leaves but little room for other occupations.

My acceptance of the universe is not optimism, it is more like patriotism.

The small truth has words that are clear; the great truth has great silence.

Everything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight lines.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, your victory will not stand in doubt.

It takes two of us to discover truth: one to utter it and one to understand it.

The light by which we see in this world comes out from the soul of the observer.

Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.

Perfect valour is to do without witnesses what one would do before all the world.

When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else.

Riches, one may say, are like sea-water; the more you drink the thirstier you become.

Nothing gives certainty but truth; nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.

The partial becomes complete; the crooked, straight; the empty, full; the worn out, new.

Never explain — your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyhow.

Custom is our nature.

The Child is father of the Man.

Beauty is the mark God sets upon virtue.

Whatever is well said by anyone is mine.

Abundant learning does not form the mind.

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

You are good when you are one with yourself.

Dreams are the touchstones of our characters.

He who does wrong does wrong against himself.

To observe attentively is to remember distinctly.

What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth.

That which you seek—to live well—is found everywhere.

Nothing is so firmly believed, as what we least know.

Your own reason is the only oracle given you by heaven.

It was better to trip with the feet, than with the tongue.

We come nearest to the great when we are great in humility.

One need only grow old to become gentler in one’s judgments.

To combine politeness with pride is a masterpiece of wisdom.

The purpose of life seems to be to acquaint a man with himself.

Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.

Time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

Wretch, you are carrying about a god with you, and you know it not.

That man who has never been in danger cannot answer for his courage.

Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.

The first and last thing that is required of genius is love of truth.

It is only people who possess firmness who can possess true gentleness.

Great minds are like eagles, and build their nest in some lofty solitude.

There are those who have the truth within them, but they tell it not in words.

It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full.

Tell me with whom you associate, and I will tell you who you are.

The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.

Wisdom is the daughter of experience.

Truth was the only daughter of Time.

He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.

The greatness of man consists in thought.

Man is but a reed, weakest in nature, but a reed which thinks.

We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.

The most certain sign of being born with great qualities is to be born without envy.

Accept life, and you must accept regret.

To go beyond is as wrong as to fall short.

Learning without thought is labour lost; thought without learning is perilous.

The fool who knows his foolishness, is wise at least so far.

My life has a limit, but my knowledge is without limit.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.

Let us be less luxurious but more magnificent.

The universe seems imperfect because we make it so.

Delusions of knowledge are like the fog of the morning.