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Rarely do we arrive at the summit of truth without running into extremes; we have frequently to exhaust the part of error, and even of folly, before we work our way up to the noble goal of tranquil wisdom.

— Friedrich Schiller

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Wisdom

More quotes by Friedrich Schiller

No cause has he to say his doom is harsh,
Who's made the master of his destiny.

Wilhelm Tell (1803)

Have Love. Not love alone for one,
But men, as man, thy brothers call;
And scatter, like the circling sun,
Thy charities on all.

He who has done his best for his own time has lived for all times.

Wallenstein (1798)

I speak with the Eternal through the instrument of nature, — through the world's history: I read the soul of the artist in his Apollo.

Love is only known by him who hopelessly persists in love.

Don Carlos (1787)

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If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)

'The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.'

William Shakespeare As You Like It (1599)

It takes extraordinary wisdom and self-control to accept that many things have a logic we do not understand that is smarter than our own.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010)

Young men think old men are fools; but old men know young men are fools.

George Chapman All Fools (1605)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Friedrich Schiller (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.