“Men all say, "We are wise"; but being driven forward and taken in a net, a trap, or a pitfall, they know not how to escape. Men all say, "We are wise"; but happening to choose the course of the Mean, they are not able to keep it for a round month.”
Source: The Doctrine of the Mean
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Confucius269
Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher -551–-479 BCRelated quotes
Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium
Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LXXVI: On Learning Wisdom in Old Age
“Wise men say nothing in dangerous times.”
John Selden (1584–1654) English jurist and scholar of England's ancient laws and constitution, and of Jewish law
Wisdom.
Table Talk (1689)
William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne (1779–1848) British Whig statesman
W. M. Torrens Memoirs of William Lamb, Second Viscount Melbourne (1890), p. 234
Attributed
“Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.”
Plato (-427–-347 BC) Classical Greek philosopher
Robert LeFevre (1911–1986) American libertarian businessman
Source: Nature of Man and His Government (1959), p. 81
“Wise men speak when they have something to say, fools speak because they have to say something”
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“The assembled souls of all that men held wise.”
William Davenant book Gondibert
Gondibert (1650), Book ii. Canto v. Stanza 37.
“We can be knowledgeable with other men's knowledge, but we cannot be wise with other men's wisdom.”
Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman
Book I, Ch. 25
Attributed
“Society speaks and all men listen, mountains speak and wise men listen.”
John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author
Frequently attributed to Muir without source. An extensive search of Muir's published and unpublished writings found several sharp and cogent observations concerning society (see above) but not this one.
Misattributed