I’m not young enough to know everything. ― Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
By the time you’re eighty years old you’ve learned everything.
You only have to remember it. ― George Burns (1896–1996)
Two kinds of knowledge
There are two kinds of knowledge:
Youth knows it all, without having lived;
And having lived and learned, Old Age
Soon forgets what it’s come to know.
Then there’s the wisdom
Of knowing you know nothing;
But knowing your Self.
― Ken Chawkin (1944–still learning)
The Coming Of Wisdom With Time
Though leaves are many, the root is one;
Through all the lying days of my youth
I swayed my leaves and flowers in the sun;
Now I may wither into the truth.
― William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
― Socrates (469–399 B.C.E.)
Know thyself.
― Ancient Greek aphorism on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
Those who know others are wise; those who know themselves are enlightened.
― Laozi (5th or 4th century BC. Tao Te Ching #33)
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
— Rumi (13th century Persian poet and Sufi mystic.)
Not being able to govern events, I govern myself.
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
— Viktor Frankl (Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life’s meaning as the central human motivational force.)
Also see: Searching For The Meaning Of Your Life.
And this related poem: Seeing Is Being.
Newly added: Quotes from famous thinkers on the nature of truth, its rejection, and acceptance over time. One of the quotes is by Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) who said: Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards. Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
Later added: These two famous quotes from an older more mature place in one’s life hold much wisdom.
When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. ― Maya Angelou
