Wisdom Quotes
“All I know is that I know nothing” is flagged as misattributed to Socrates. The nearest thing in Plato is the end of Book I of the Republic, where Socrates concludes that he knows nothing about what justice is. That is a narrower claim than the slogan, and part of an argument rather than a statement about himself.
Most of the entries here come from poets and playwrights, with Shakespeare, Edward Young and Pope at the top, which fits: wisdom is rarely stated in a sentence of its own, more often spoken by a character or tucked into a couplet. For the sourced ones, William James in The Principles of Psychology (1890): “The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” Or Blake, in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790): “If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.”
Morality comes with the sad wisdom of age, when the sense of curiosity has withered.
Everything you learned in the past is irrelevant, except for the wisdom that pertains to Now.
Of all the things to seek, the first is wisdom, in which lies the form of perfect goodness.
More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will not forsake us.
Con the dead page as ’twere live love: press on!
Cold wisdom’s words will ease thy track for thee.