Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/zsy8hdo3  ·  submitted 1997

My father must have had some elementary education, for he could read and write and keep accounts inaccurately.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/tde4qweo  ·  submitted 1997

The longer I live the more I see that I am never wrong about anything, and that all the pains that I have so humbly taken to verify my notions have only wasted my time.

George Bernard Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/spdfyk43  ·  submitted 1997

Advice is like kissing. It costs nothing and is a pleasant thing to do.

H. W. Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/yzyptgt2  ·  submitted 1997

The world's greatest heroes are the world's greatest fuck-ups.

Stacy Shaw, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/aj3tzjw2  ·  submitted 1997

Sometimes a whisper speaks volumes.

Scott Sheddan, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/inmjkhxu  ·  submitted 1997

If you hear a wise sentence or an apt phrase, commit it to your memory.

Sir Henry Sidney, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/0rczsoyu  ·  submitted 1997

What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.

Herbert Simon, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6hcujeiu  ·  submitted 1997

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/2ljggwxr  ·  submitted 1997

Four Plays by Aristophanes (paperback)

The wise learn many things from their enemies.

Aristophanes, The Birds, 414 B.C., in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/dc6pcq9o  ·  submitted 1997

All men naturally desire knowledge.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6wydulw8  ·  submitted 1997

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/khtxcyl0  ·  submitted 1997

It is unbecoming for young men to utter maxims.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/q2cvf8pi  ·  submitted 1997

The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6lar7dwe  ·  submitted 1997

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than parents, for these only gave life, those the art of living well.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/oujwgybq  ·  submitted 1997

Wit is educated insolence.

Aristotle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/viymqgdo  ·  submitted 1997

Cogito cogito ergo cogito sum -- "I think that I think, therefore I think that I am."

Ambrose Bierce, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/yfqykgpj  ·  submitted 1997

The Devil's Dictionary (paperback)

Education: That which discloses to the wise and disguises from the fool their lack of understanding.

Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/gvfo9jw1  ·  submitted 1997

Education is the period during which you are being instructed by somebody you do not know, about something you do not want to know.

Gilbert K. Chesterton, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bqie1hj5  ·  submitted 1998

An aphorism is not an aphorism unless you know what it means.

Winston Churchill, in Wisdom and Ignorance