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.”
O ye simple, understand wisdom: and, ye fools, be ye of an understanding heart.
The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.
Folly is wont to have more followers and comrades than discretion.
To stumble twice against the same stone, is a proverbial disgrace.
To your folly add bloodshed, and stir the fire with the sword.
He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks.
So that we may not be like the Athenians, who never consulted except after the event done.
The solemn fog; significant and budge;
A fool with judges, amongst fools a judge.
The rest on outside merit but presume,
Or serve (like other fools) to fill a room.
Whether the charmer sinner it, or saint it,
If folly grow romantic, I must paint it.
I hold him but a fool that will endanger
His body for a girl that loves him not.