Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/r0a9zwmr  ·  submitted 1997

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/uvmow3r4  ·  submitted 1997

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

Mark Van Doren, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ctg0dc6w  ·  submitted 1999 by Bill Masterson

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Blaise Pascal, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hutuz2wq  ·  submitted 1997

The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.

Ellen Parr, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/pdln3czv  ·  submitted 1997

You can lead a horticulture but you can't make her think.

Dorothy Parker, (when asked to use the word "horticulture" in a sentence), 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/byjgwlzg  ·  submitted 1997

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Mark Twain, 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/qabymet3  ·  submitted 1997

In a mad world, only the mad are sane.

Akiro Kurosawa, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/gokrtfpu  ·  submitted 1997

If I don't know I don't know, I think I know. If I don't know I know, I think I don't know.

R. D. Laing, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/htpbx3e8  ·  submitted 1997

A scholar who cherishes the love of comfort is not fit to be deemed a scholar.

Lao Tsu, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Work and Recreation

tiny.ag/nolhz29r  ·  submitted 1998

Absorb what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own.

Bruce Lee, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hrlrndwx  ·  submitted 1997

If a person feels he can't communicate, the least he can do is shut up about it.

Tom Lehrer, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/pgdfkoxt  ·  submitted 1997

If confusion is the first step to knowledge, I must be a genius.

Larry Leissner, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/airwcz94  ·  submitted 1997

A book is a mirror; if an ass peers into it, you can't expect an apostle to look out.

G. C. Lichtenberg, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/0h8wlpui  ·  submitted 1997

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true either is true or becomes true.

John Lilly, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ipa5yree  ·  submitted 1997

No man's knowledge here can go beyond his experience.

John A. Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/wuzygxbp  ·  submitted 1999

Watch the traffic, the light will never hit you.

"Moms" Mabley, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/qkrsbfxv  ·  submitted 1997

The person who knows how to laugh at himself will never cease to be amused.

Shirley Maclaine, 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