Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/hfx4m7bz  ·  submitted 1998 by David Shorr

The Satyricon (paperback)

Wisdom and beauty form a very rare combination

Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon, XCIV, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kiytmq1q  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing.

Jorge Luis Borges, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bza7uu5d  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges, "El informe de Brodie", in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/inomue9p  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote", in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wagakfth  ·  submitted 1999

Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ow2rizet  ·  submitted 1998

In order to keep an open mind, I am trying to avoid learning anything.

Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts (copyright info: www.ashleighbrilliant.com), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/otl52twf  ·  submitted 1997 by James Menzies

The masses have little time to think. And how incredible is the willingness of modern man to believe.

Benito Mussolini, in Law and Politics and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/loqr7ybp  ·  submitted 1997

Too clever is dumb.

Ogden Nash, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/h2rdoaxw  ·  submitted 1997

Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.

Friedrich Nietzsche, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/mfx0o8sc  ·  submitted 1997

If what Proust says is true, that happiness is the absence of fever, then I will never know happiness. For I am possessed by a fever for knowledge, experience, and creation.

Anaïs Nin, in Happiness and Misery and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/pwxgqowu  ·  submitted 1997

We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are.

Anaïs Nin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/l2qkzwis  ·  submitted 1997

Any man whose errors take ten years to correct is quite a man.

Robert J. Oppenheimer, (on Albert Einstein), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/8egicznw  ·  submitted 1997

You have to be an intellectual to believe such nonsense. No ordinary man could be such a fool.

George Orwell, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ldizacqu  ·  submitted 1997

Foundation (paperback)

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Isaac Asimov, Foundation (Salvor Hardin), in War and Peace and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/s0wemj5y  ·  submitted 1997

A large brain, like large government, may not be able to do simple things in a simple way.

Donald O. Hebb, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/gbo6vshj  ·  submitted 1997

An expert is someone who knows some of the worst mistakes that can be made in his subject and how to avoid them.

Werner Heisenberg, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wgyfgj8m  ·  submitted 1997

Wonder, rather than doubt, is the root of knowledge.

Abraham Heschel, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/yamidgsg  ·  submitted 1999

Ignorance does not necesarilly mean one has a lack of wisdom, for a most ignorant person can be one with much wisdom. It's "live and learn" that creates wisdom.

Austin Holmes, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hyedkhd2  ·  submitted 1997

It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ls2p5dcg  ·  submitted 1997

Sloppy thinking gets worse over time.

Jenny Holzer, in Wisdom and Ignorance