Wisdom Quotes
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Fun fact: Owls represent wisdom in pop culture because in ancient Greece, they were sidekicks to Athena, goddess of wisdom. Click on any wisdom quote below to see it in context and find out where it falls on Shmoop's pretentious scale. We'll give you details on who said it, when they said it, and in some cases, why on earth they thought it was okay to say it.
"'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.'"Source: Jeremiah 29:10-14 | Speaker: The Prophet Jeremiah
"A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth"Source: The Great Gatsby | Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Be a philosopher, but amidst all your philosophy be still a man."Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | Author: David Hume
"Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are."Source: The Alchemist | Author: Paulo Coelho
"Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."Source: Matthew 7:15 | Speaker: Jesus
"But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was."Source: Luke 10:30, 33-34 | Author: Luke
"But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."Source: "Loving Your Enemies" Sermon, Christmas Day 1957 | Speaker: Martin Luther King Jr.
"Dead flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth a stinking savour."Source: Ecclesiastes 10:1 | Author: Narrator
"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise."Source: Poor Richard's Almanack | Author: Benjamin Franklin
"Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."Source: Coraline | Author: Neil Gaiman & G.K. Chesterton
"Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us."Source: The Great Gatsby | Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald
"God doesn't play dice with the world."Source: Einstein and the Poet: In Search of the Cosmic Man | Speaker: Albert Einstein
"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."Source: Anna Karenina | Author: Leo Tolstoy
"He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."Source: The Gospel of John | Speaker: Jesus of Nazareth
"How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."Source: The Diary of Anne Frank | Author: Anne Frank
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."Source: The Remarkable Rocket | Author: Oscar Wilde
"I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like them, Sam-I-Am."Source: Green Eggs and Ham | Author: Dr. Seuss
"I do not wish any reward but to know I have done the right thing."Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Author: Mark Twain
"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy."Source: 1780 Letter | Author: John Adams
"I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber, poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing the grocery boys."Source: A Supermarket in California | Author: Allen Ginsberg
"If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."Source: Letter to Robert Hooke | Author: Sir Isaac Newton
"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars."Source: War and Peace | Author: Leo Tolstoy
"If one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another."Source: Mansfield Park | Author: Jane Austen
"If you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change."Source: "Man in the Mirror" | Speaker: Michael Jackson
"If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals."Source: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire | Author: J. K. Rowling
"In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."Source: Proverbs 3:6 | Author: King Solomon
"In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute."Source: Furman v. Georgia | Author: Thurgood Marshall
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live."Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Author: J. K. Rowling
"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change."Source: The Origin of the Species | Speaker: Charles Darwin
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."Source: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone | Author: J.K. Rowling
"Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other."Source: Trade Mart speech (undelivered) | Speaker: John F. Kennedy
"Let's face it: our lives are miserable, laborious, and short."Source: Animal Farm | Author: George Orwell
"Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."Source: The Declaration of Independence | Author: Thomas Jefferson
"Look for the bare necessities, the simple bare necessities."Source: Bare Necessities | Speaker: Baloo
"Love the sinner and hate the sin."Source: Letters of Saint Augustine (#211) | Author: Augustine of Hippo
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."Source: The Social Contract | Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"Man, when you lose your laugh you lose your footing."Source: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest | Author: Ken Kesey
"Maybe Christmas, perhaps...means a little bit more!"Source: How the Grinch Stole Christmas | Author: Dr. Seuss
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast."Source: The Mourning Bride | Author: William Congreve
"My advice is, never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time."Source: David Copperfield | Author: Charles Dickens
"My country is the world; my countrymen are mankind."Source: Declaration of Sentiments, The Liberator Magazine | Author: William Lloyd Garrison
"One must lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do anything about them"Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Religion is the opium of the people."Source: A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right (Unfinished) | Author: Karl Marx
"Right is right, and wrong is wrong."Source: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn | Author: Mark Twain
"So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away"Source: Television | Author: Roald Dahl
"Some infinities are bigger than other infinities."Source: The Fault in Our Stars | Author: John Green
"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."Source: March from Selma, 1965 | Speaker: Martin Luther King, Jr.
"The Brain—is wider than the Sky—"Source: The Brain—is wider than the Sky— | Author: Emily Dickinson
"The Christian religion cannot be believed by any reasonable person."Source: An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding | Author: David Hume
"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go."Source: I Can Read with My Eyes Shut! | Author: Dr. Seuss
"The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking."Source: What is Called Thinking? | Author: Martin Heidegger
"The mystery of life isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience."Source: Dune | Author: Frank Herbert
"The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it."Source: The Second Treatise on Civil Government | Author: John Locke
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."Source: Unknown | Speaker: Albert Einstein
"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."Source: The Importance of Being Earnest | Author: Oscar Wilde
"The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places."Source: A Farewell to Arms | Author: Ernest Hemingway
"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."Source: Lord of the Flies | Author: William Golding
"There are few people whom I really love and still fewer of whom I think well."Source: Pride and Prejudice | Author: Jane Austen
"There are just some kind of men who—who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one"Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"There's something in our world that makes men lose their heads—they couldn't be fair if they tried."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold."Source: The Second Coming | Author: William Butler Yeats
"This is a man's world. But it wouldn't be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl."Source: It's a Man's Man's Man's World | Speaker: James Brown
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."Source: Pennsylvania Assembly | Author: Benjamin Franklin
"Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."Source: In Memoriam | Author: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
"To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all."Source: The Soul of Man Under Socialism | Author: Oscar Wilde
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."Source: The Road Not Taken | Author: Robert Frost
"Until I feared I would lose it, I never loved to read. One does not love breathing."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."Source: 1984 | Author: George Orwell
"Very superstitious, writing's on the wall. Very superstitious, ladder's 'bout to fall."Source: Superstition | Speaker: Stevie Wonder
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."Source: Lady Windermere's Fan | Author: Oscar Wilde
"We are not makers of history; we are made by history."Source: Strength to Love | Author: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"What is the point of worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one's life took?"Source: The Remains of the Day | Author: Kazuo Ishiguro
"When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"Wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there."Source: The Grapes of Wrath | Speaker: Tom Joad
"Why are there beings at all, instead of nothing?"Source: Introduction to Metaphysics | Author: Martin Heidegger
"Words can be like X-Rays if you use them properly – they'll go through anything."Source: Brave New World | Author: Aldous Huxley
"You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need."Source: You Can't Always Get What You Want | Speaker: The Rolling Stones
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."Source: 1946 Letter | Author: Albert Einstein
"You don't have to live forever. You just have to live."Source: Tuck Everlasting | Speaker: The Narrator
"You just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee
"You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."Source: No Country for Old Men | Author: Cormac McCarthy
"You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view […] until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."Source: To Kill a Mockingbird | Author: Harper Lee