Quotes about wisdom
page 20

“My father used to say that we surrendered our youth to purchase wisdom. What he never told me was how badly we get cheated on the exchange rate!”

Morris West (1916–1999) Australian writer

Prince Alessandro Farnese di Mongrifone in Book 1. London: Mandarin, 1993, p. 176
The Lovers (1993)

Youth, Cheating

“The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), page 95
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

People, Faith, Communication, Thinking

“[W]hat alone has value is the use to which life is put and the end to which it is directed. The value of life has to be created by man, it cannot be obtained through luck but only through wisdom. He who is anxiously concerned over losing his life will never enjoy life.”

Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) German philosopher

Kant, Immanuel (1996), pages 141
Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798)

Life, Bad luck

“[India is the] lost paradise of all religions and philosophies," "the cradle of humanity," and also its "eternal home," and the great Orient "waiting to be discovered within ourselves."... "mankind's origins can be traced to India, where the human mind got the first shapes of wisdom and virtue with simplicity, strength and sublimity which has - frankly spoken - nothing, nothing at all equivalent in our philosophical, cold European world."... "O holy land (India), I salute thee, thou source of all music, thou voice of the heart' ... "Behold the East - cradle of the human race, of human emotion, of all religion."”

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) German philosopher, theologian, poet, and literary critic

Quotes by Herder about India. Quoted from Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication. (quoting Ghosh, Pranebendranath Johann Gottfried Herder's Image of India (1900)p334, Singhal, Damodar P India and world Civilization Rupa and Co Calcutta 1993 p. 231)

World, Religion, Music, Home

“Seek the wisdom of ten people rather than the knowledge of one.”

Masaaki Imai (1930) Japanese business theorist and consultant

People, Knowledge

“Give any man the power of a god, and you better hope he's got the wisdom and morals of a god to match. There's nothing feeble about my moral line. I value life. That is why I fight to protect it. I mourn every man I lose and every sacrifice I make. One life or a billion, they're all lives.”

Dan Abnett (1965) British comic book writer, novelist

Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt:
Warhammer 40,000 Works, Gaunt's Ghosts (novel series), First & Only

Life, God, Making love, Hope

“Knowledge facilitates comprehension and experience increases wisdom.”

Husayn ibn Ali (626–680) The grandson of Muhammad and the son of Ali ibn Abi Talib

[Mizan al-Hikmah, Muhammadi Reishahri, Muhammad, Dar al-Hadith, 2010, 2, Qum, 186]
Regarding Wisdom

Knowledge

“People are aging with time.
Reflections on our contribution in this life is necessary.
Sincere words are precious.
For people can never have enough of pearls of wisdom.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 日月催人老，今生有幾何？
真言誠可貴，感語不嫌多。

"Occasional thoughts" (偶感)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 88.

Life, People, Age, Time

“After a storm comes a calm.
Even a pitch-dark night is bound to turn into a red dawn.
If we use wisdom and persistence to solve every difficulty we encounter.
A rosy future will be awaiting us.”

Deng Feng-Zhou (1949) Chinese poet, Local history writer, Taoist Neidan academics and Environmentalist.

(zh-TW) 暴雨烏雲久必晴，夜深輾轉是天明。
面臨困境憑心力，度過難關一片清。

"Patience" (忍耐)

Source: Deng Feng-Zhou, "Deng Feng-Zhou Classical Chinese Poetry Anthology". Volume 6, Tainan, 2018: 81.

Future, Night

“Some people (cabal members) who thought that they had a monopoly over truth and over wisdom found that the masses didn’t agree with them…These people are now confused …and want to say that they’re the repository of the entire truth and everything else is false consciousness.”

Swapan Dasgupta (1955) Indian politician, journalist and columnist

Swapan Dasgupta, a Rajya Sabha MP, in reference to the Lutyens’ cabal, had stated in a debate at Jaipur Literature Festival 2017, https://www.opindia.com/2020/04/lutyens-media-freedom-of-expression-siddharth-varadarajan-arnab-goswami-sonia-gandhi/

People, Truth, Falseness

“A tree is known by its fruit and it is by His love, wisdom, spiritual potency and work for humanity that you will recognize Maitreya and know Him for what He is.”

Benjamin Creme (1922–2016) artist, author, esotericist

Maitreya's Mission Vol. I (1986)

Love, Making love, Tree

“Wisdom made him old and wary
Banishing the Lords of Faery.
Wisdom made a breach and battered
Babylon to bits: she scattered
To the hedges and ditches
All our nursery gnomes and witches.”

Robert Graves (1895–1985) English poet and novelist

"Babylon"
Fairies and Fusiliers (1917)

“I thought I knew where I was going, until I heard your laughter flowing
And came upon the wisdom in your eyes”

Jackson Browne (1948) American singer-songwriter

I Thought I was Child For Everyman (1973)

Laughter

“I acknowledge the privilege of being alive
In a human body at this moment,
Endowed with senses, memories, emotions, thoughts,
And the space of mind in its wisdom aspect.”

Alex Grey (1953) American artist

Art Psalms (2008), The Vast Expanse

Sense, Memory

“The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.”

Patañjali (-200–-150 BC) ancient Indian scholar(s) of grammar and linguistics, of yoga, of medical treatises

Patanjali, in Hinduism http://books.google.co.in/books?id=GmQ_yp4vVhsC&pg=PA63, p. 63.

“Due to having faith one relies on the practices,
Due to having wisdom one truly knows.
Of these two wisdom is the chief,
Faith is its prerequisite.”

Nagarjuna (150–250) Indian philosopher

The Precious Garland, 5

trans. by Jeffrey Hopkins, "Buddhist Advice for Living and Liberation: Nagarjuna's Precious Garland" (1998), ISBN 1559398515
Major attributed works, Ratnāvalī (Precious Garland)

Faith

“As business leaders, we should resist the temptation to believe that learning stops after a bachelor's degree, an MBA, or a few years in the workplace. We need only be humble enough to accept the wisdom we are offered.”

Bhanu Choudhrie (1978)

"Expanding Your Mind, Growing Your Business" https://www.exed.hbs.edu/testimonials/owner-president-management-bhanu-choudhrie, Harvard Business School (2019)

Business, Learning

“Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?
Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
Or Love in a golden bowl?”

William Blake The Book of Thel

The Book of Thel, Thel's Motto (1789–1792)
1780s

Love, Making love

“All the learned men with all their wisdom, with all of the legal niceties they can put together on the finest of parchment, cannot produce one ton of steel.”

Walter Reuther (1907–1970) Labor union leader

1940s, Address accepting the Presidency of the CIO (1952)
Just sit down on a doorstep with a peasant in a village of Northern India and take on the task of trying to explain to him why America, conceived in freedom and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, a nation that can split the atom, that can make a pursuit ship go three times as fast as sound and yet, in this twentieth century, we can't live together in brotherhood and we continue to discriminate against Negroes. It will tax your ingenuity, and you will give them no answers. You can only give them excuses. And excuses are not good enough, if we are going to win the struggle of freedom in the world.
Source: Address accepting the Presidency of the Congress of Industrial Organizations, Atlantic City, New Jersey, December 4, 1952, as quoted in Walter P Reuther: Selected Papers (1961), by Henry M. Christman, p. 51

Men, Learning

“Dissimulations is but a faint kind of policy, or wisdom; for it asketh a strong wit, and a strong heart, to know when to tell truth, and to do it. Therefore it is the weaker sort of politics, that are the great dissemblers.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. Verulam Viscount St. Albans (1625), Of Simulation And Dissimulation

Truth, Strong, Heart

“Whosoever wishes for happiness in the other life, wisdom in this world, equity in their deeds, having all moral qualities, the practice of all virtues, ought to follow in his deeds the example of Mohammed (PBUH) the Messenger of God.”

Ibn Hazm (994–1064) Arab theologian

ibid. 23

Life, God, Happiness, World

“Turn where we may,—within,—around,—the voice of great events is proclaiming to us, Reform, that you may preserve. Now, therefore, while every thing at home and abroad forebodes ruin to those who persist in a hopeless struggle against the spirit of the age,—now, while the crash of the proudest throne of the continent is still resounding in our ears,—now, while the roof of a British palace affords an ignominious shelter to the exiled heir of forty kings,—now, while we see on every side ancient institutions subverted, and great societies dissolved,—now, while the heart of England is still sound,—now, while the old feelings and the old associations retain a power and a charm which may too soon pass away,—now, in this your accepted time,—now in this your day of salvation,—take counsel, not of prejudice,—not of party spirit,—not of the ignominious pride of a fatal consistency,—but of history,—of reason,—of the ages which are past,—of the signs of this most portentous time. Pronounce in a manner worthy of the expectation with which this great Debate has been anticipated, and of the long remembrance which it will leave behind. Renew the youth of the State. Save property divided against itself. Save the multitude, endangered by their own ungovernable passions. Save the aristocracy, endangered by its own unpopular power. Save the greatest, and fairest, and most highly civilized community that ever existed, from calamities which may in a few days sweep away all the rich heritage of many ages of wisdom and glory. The danger is terrible. The time is short. If this Bill should be rejected, I pray to God that none of those who concur in rejecting it may ever remember their votes with unavailing regret, amidst the wreck of laws, the confusion of ranks, the spoliation of property, and the dissolution of social order.”

Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (1800–1859) British historian and Whig politician

Speech in the House of Commons (2 March 1831) https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1831/mar/02/ministerial-plan-of-parliamentary-reform#column_1204 in favour of the Reform Bill <br class="br">1830s

God, Youth, Age, Law

“Let us not admit discourses by Epicureans or Pyrrhonists – though indeed the gods have already in their wisdom destroyed their works, so that most of their books are no longer available. Nevertheless, there is no reason why I should not, by way of example, mention these works too, to show what sort of discourses priests must especially avoid; and if such discourses, then much more must they avoid such thoughts.”

Julian (emperor) (331–363) Roman Emperor, philosopher and writer

Fragmentum Epistulae 288a-305d
General sources

God, Books, Way

“The greatness of a free-market economy is that it does not depend upon the wisdom of those who happen to be on top at the moment.”

Thomas Sowell (1930) American economist, social theorist, political philosopher and author

“Rise and fall of a business,” Monterey Herald, December 30, 2000
2000s

Dependency

“Life in its entirety must be purified by the flame of achievement. The great Buddha, who preordained Maitreya, prescribed the path for the whole of existence. For those wise and clear covenants, the manifestation of the new evolution is calling. The demand for the purification of the Teaching is not accidental. The dates are approaching. The Image of Maitreya is ready to rise. All the Buddhas of the past have combined their wisdom of experience and have handed it on to the Blessed Coming One.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)

Life, Past

“According to tradition, the Blessed One preordained the Bodhisattva Maitreya as his successor. “And the Blessed One said to Ananda, ‘I am not the first Buddha who has come upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time another Buddha will arise in the world, a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, embracing the Universe, an incomparable leader of men, a ruler of devas and mortals. He will reveal to you the same eternal truths, that I have taught you. He will establish his Law, glorious in its origin, glorious at the climax, and glorious at the goal, in the spirit and in the letter. He will proclaim a righteous life, wholly perfect and pure, such as I now proclaim. His disciples will number many thousands while mine number many hundreds.’ “Ananda said, ‘How shall we know him?’ “The Blessed One said, ‘He will be known as Maitreya!’ ”  (Paul Carus, The Gospel of Buddha) The future Buddha, Maitreya, as his name indicates, is the Buddha of compassion and love. This Bodhisattva, according to the power of his qualities, is often called Ajita—the Invincible.”

Helena Roerich (1879–1955) Russian philosopher

Source: Foundations of Buddhism (1930)

Love, Life, Men, Truth

“For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons — John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody — oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Litany for Dictatorships (1935)

Death, War, Peace, Star

“The task of unveiling the hidden truth demands some knowledge of Cosmogenesis, of the emanation of the Universe from the Absolute, the finite from the Infinite, and of the successive cycles, major and minor, of involution and evolution. In addition, both knowledge of the Symbolical Language, its purposes, methods and classical symbols, and the faculty of analysing and interpreting historical metaphors, are necessary to open the casket containing the treasures of concealed wisdom—the Holy Bible itself.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Source: The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963)

Truth, Knowledge, Universe, Success

“The mission of the Jews and the purpose of the erudite and initiated authors of the Bible was, I submit, to preserve, to enunciate and to deliver to humanity this wisdom of the Chaldeo-Hebrew Sanctuaries. It is for this and not for lordship over the Earth, I suggest, that the Jews were a chosen people, a nation or “kingdom of priests” in very truth. May not their tribulations have partly arisen from their neglect of this mission, and may not their earthly wanderings and centuries of physical homelessness have followed upon and resulted from their departure from their true Sanctuary and the real purpose for which they were “chosen?””

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

Happily the light still shines, however deeply veiled, in and through this marvellous record of the Scriptures of the Hebrew Race.
Source: The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible] (1963)

People, Truth, Departure

“Take our constitution, wanting certainly as it did many reforms, yet, practically, it afforded the best security that human wisdom had ever given to man.”

Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751–1816) Irish-British politician, playwright and writer

Speech in the House of Commons (21 July 1812), quoted in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, Vol. XXIII (1812), column 1156

“...the great Book of Genesis—a marvellous cup filled with the “wine” of the esoteric knowledge of the Sanctuaries of ancient days. Temples of the Ageless Wisdom exist to-day, even if less easily discoverable, and in them are to be found the selfsame teachings, laws, successions, Initiations and radiations of the light of Truth. World changes are not reflected in the Mysteries, which are repositories and conveyors of eternal and unchanging Ideas. A sack of corn containing a silver cup awaits every Benjamin who finds himself called by a Hierophant (Joseph) from the “famine-stricken” outer world to the “storehouse” from which an elder brother (a Master) Who has already attained will, in prodigal abundance, supply a gift of the golden grain of eternal verities.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963), Volume III

Truth, Books, World, Law

“The seeker for wisdom must... be prepared to delve deeply, to discover, and to interpret according to the classical keys, the numberless treasures of spiritual and occult wisdom and law which lie beneath the surface of all allegorical writings, littered with debris though that surface may appear to be.”

Geoffrey Hodson (1886–1983) New Zealand occultist

The Hidden Wisdom In The Holy Bible (1963), Volume III

Lie, Law, Appearance

“the teaching of my philosophy... that our whole existence is something which had better not have been, and that to disown and disclaim it is the highest wisdom.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Ch 1 <br class="br">Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims <br class="br">Source: Counsels and Maxims http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/counsels/chapter1.html 2017-12-01 https://web.archive.org/web/20171201131253/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/schopenhauer/arthur/counsels/chapter1.html,

“[Nature] only keeps us alive by a complicated system of the most shameful illusions, falsifying beyond rectification life, death, and after-death. Having made us take part in this poor puzzling game of life, she has taken care that all the rules shall be unfavourable to us: the cards are marked, the dice are loaded, we are always swindled. Thus years of hard work; and self-denial are frequently lost by a slip or chance, but seldom or never saved by a chance. Our health may be ruined by a pin-prick, but never doubled by an accident. We fall seriously ill in a moment, and take weeks or months to recover; lose a limb by some sudden mishap, but never by a good hap regain it. We cannot reach even a low degree of wisdom or knowledge without long hard study, while to be ignorant and foolish is the easiest and most natural thing in the world for us. Our sorrows are real and enduring; our joys deceptive and transient; our prizes of victory are not to be compared with our forfeits of defeat.”

James Thomson (B.V.) (1834–1882) Scottish writer (1834-1882)

"The Speedy Extinction of Evil and Misery", part II, p. 62
Essays and Phantasies (1881)

Life, Death, Health, World

“In the lived experience, there is the wisdom of security.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: Nell'esperienza vissuta, c'è la saggezza della sicurezza.
Source: prevale.net

“Music allows me to disconnect from my present reality, and communicate to my future wisdom.”

Isaac Mashman (2000) businessman, speaker

Music, Communication, Reality, Future

“The soul completely dominated by its desire for spiritual instruction is never sated.It is because of this that Wisdom says of herself, 'Those who eat Me will still be hungry' (Eccles. 24:21); while the Lord, who has instilled this divine desire in the soul, says of Mary who chose 'what is best' that it will not be taken away from her (cf. Luke 10:42).”

Gregory Palamas (1296–1359) Monk and archbishop

Source: To the Most Reverend Nun Xenia (c. 1344), p. 295

Soul

“War taken at the best is a frightful scourge to the human race; but because it is so the wisdom of ages has surrounded it with strict laws and usages, and has required formalities to be observed which shall act as a curb upon the wild passions of man, to prevent that scourge from being let loose unless under circumstances of full deliberation and from absolute necessity. You have dispensed with all these precautions.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1857/mar/03/resolution-moved-resumed-debate-fourth#column_1802 in the House of Commons against the Second Opium War (3 March 1857) <br class="br">1850s

War, Age, Law, Passion

“In the face of warfare and inevitable death, there is no wisdom but in ataraxia, “to look on all things with a mind at peace"."”

Will Durant book The Story of Philosophy

Here, clearly, the old pagan joy of life is gone, and an almost exotic spirit touches a broken lyre. History, which is nothing if not humorous, was never to facetious as when she gave to this abstemious and epic pessimist the name of Epicurean.
The Story of Philosophy (1926)

Death, Peace

“The safest way to transport a sick newborn, so hospital wisdom goes, is when it is still inside its mothers.”

Perri Klass (1958) American pediatrician and writer

[Baby Doctor, https://books.google.com/books?id=8VAsAAAAYAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=newborn, 1992, 249, Random House, 978-0-679-40957-1]

Way

“Wisdom is a kind of knowledge. It is knowledge of the nature, career, and consequences of human values.”

Sidney Hook (1902–1989) American philosopher

Nature, Knowledge

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. It may not be difficult to store up in the mind a vast quantity of facts within a comparatively short time, but the ability to form judgments requires the severe discipline of hard work and the tempering heat of experience and maturity.”

Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933) American politician, 30th president of the United States (in office from 1923 to 1929)

Knowledge, Time

“It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.”

Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) English philosopher, born 1588

Law

“Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Religion, Knowledge, Science

“Cleverness is not wisdom.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

“It is good even for old men to learn wisdom.”

Aeschylus (-525–-456 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Men, Learning

“We all grow up. Hopefully, we get wiser. Age brings wisdom, and fatherhood changes one's life completely.”

Frank W. Abagnale (1948) American security consultant, former confidence trickster, check forger, impostor, and escape artist

Life, Age, Change

“In life, all good things come hard, but wisdom is the hardest to come by.”

Lucille Ball (1911–1989) American actress and businesswoman

Life

“If facts are the seeds that later produce knowledge and wisdom, then the emotions and the impressions of the senses are the fertile soil in which the seeds must grow.”

Rachel Carson (1907–1964) American marine biologist and conservationist

Knowledge, Sense

“Where is the Life we have lost in living? Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?”

George Eliot (1819–1880) English novelist, journalist and translator

Life, Knowledge

“Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

Men, Courage, Universe

“All this worldly wisdom was once the unamiable heresy of some wise man.”

Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) 1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitionist

“Wisdom is found only in truth.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

Truth

“There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.”

Confucius (-551–-479 BC) Chinese teacher, editor, politician, and philosopher

“The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.”

Khalil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese artist, poet, and writer

Teachers, Housing, Wise, Teachers' Day

“On every thorn, delightful wisdom grows, In every rill a sweet instruction flows.”

Edward Young (1683–1765) English poet

Wise

“Wisdom is the power to put our time and our knowledge to the proper use.”

Tom Watson (1874–1956) American businessman

Knowledge, Time, Wise

“Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”

Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy

Way, Lying

“I look forward to a great future for America - a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

Future, Country, Wealth

“Life is the only real counselor; wisdom unfiltered through personal experience does not become a part of the moral tissue.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Life, Parting, Personality

“America's freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, offers every wisdom tradition an opportunity to address our soul-deep needs: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, secular humanism, agnosticism and atheism among others.”

Parker Palmer (1939) American theologian

Religion, Soul, Freedom

“Along with success comes a reputation for wisdom.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Success, Success

“If you were to offer a thirsty man all wisdom, you would not please him more than if you gave him a drink.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Drink

“The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth.”

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician

Variant: The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning we arrive at the truth.

Truth, Question