Wisdom Quotes - Page 4

Speak only if it improves upon the silence.

Knowing thyself, that is the greatest wisdom.

Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt or control the right of another; and this is the only check it ought to suffer and the only bounds it ought to know.... Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech, a thing terrible to traitors.

Intellect takes you to the door, but it doesn't take you into the house.

My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician. To tell the truth, there's hardly a difference.

If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle.

Every person that you meet knows something you don't; learn from them.

At the end of the day, you can have something in your head, something in your hand, or something in your heart. What are you choosing?

If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company.

The hypocrite looks for faults; the believer looks for excuses.

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

We have a right to believe whatever we want, but not everything we believe is right.

True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.

The smallest deed is better than the greatest intention.

You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. Do not even listen, simply wait, be quiet, still and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked, it has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

The heart, in its journey to Allah, Majestic is He, is like that of a bird; Love is its head, and fear and hope are its two wings. When the head and two wings are sound, the bird flies gracefully; if the head is severed, the bird dies; if the bird loses one of its wings, it then becomes a target for every hunter or predator.

If your busy with yourself now, you will be busy with yourself then. If you are busy with Allah now, you will be with Him then.

The true laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions we uncover the laws of truth.

If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.

Only someone who is sincere recognizes what showing off is.

Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul.

The more I read, the more I acquire, the more certain I am that I know nothing.