The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine. The simplicity of nature is not that which may be easily read but is inexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made.
Will is the measure of power. To a great genius there must be a great will. If the thought is not a lamp to the will, does not proceed to an act, the wise are imbecile. He alone is strong and happy who has a will. The rest are herds. He uses; they are used. He is of the Maker; they are of the Made. Will is always miraculous, being the presence of God to men. When it appears in a man he is a hero, and all metaphysics are at fault.
If I say that God is good, that is not true. God is not good. I am good, and if I say that God is wise, that is not true. I am wiser than he is.
A wise man never refuses anything to necessity.
Some of us awake in the night with strange phantasms of enchanted hills and gardens, of fountains that sing in the sun, of golden cliffs overhanging murmuring seas, of plains that stretch down to sleeping cities of bronze andstone, and of shadowy companies of heroes that ride caparisoned white horsesalong the edges of thick forests, and then we know that we have looked backthrough the ivory gates into that world of wonder that was ours, before we were wise and unhappy.
I am sorry they began their deliberations by so abominable a precedent as that of tying up the tongues of their members. Nothing can justify this example but the innocence of their intentions and ignorance of the value of public discussions. I have no doubt that all their other measures will be good and wise. It is really an assembly of demigods.
His bark is worse than his bite.
O harmless Death! whom still the valiant brave, The wise expect, the sorrowful invite, And all the good embrace, who know the grave A short dark passage to eternal light.
Your village just called. They're missing an idiot.
Life will always remain a gamble, with prizes sometimes for the imprudent, and blanks so often to the wise.
Let me now. . . warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party. . . . The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another. . . . In governments purely elective, it [the spirit of party] is a spirit not to be encouraged.
It shapes my reality, where I was born, in two ways. One, I was burdened by the culture I was born in. And secondly, it gave me a context with which to actually see with wise eyes as well. So culture is both a burden as well as an opportunity for us to look at the world through eyes of wisdom.
If you want to be found stand where the seeker seeks.
A wise man should so write (though in words understood by all men) that wise men only should be able to commend him.
This-this was what made life: a moment of quiet, the water falling in the fountain, the girl's voice. . . a moment of captured beauty. Those who are truly wise will never permit such moments to escape.
There is nothing by which men display their character so much as in what they consider ridiculous. . . Fools and sensible men are equally innocuous. It is in the half fools and the half wise that the great danger lies.
If you don't know, ask. You will be a fool for the moment, but a wise man for the rest of your life.
It's a wise man who profits by his own experience, but it's a good deal wiser one who lets the rattlesnake bite the other fellow.
What we want to do is make sure they're not totally kept from what's going on in the world. We don't want to seclude them but, at the same time, we want them to have wisdom and discernment to make wise decisions - to protect them through the love of the family and the value that we have in one another and in the Lord and our time in Scripture. Finding that balance is not an easy task but it can be done.
the wise man should always follow the roads that have been trodden by the great, and imitate those who have most excelled, so that if he cannot reach their perfection, he may at least acquire something of its savour.
