Sourced and curated.

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1793

★ 7.3

Play

T.S. Eliot

1934

★ 6.9

Knowledge can be communicated but not wisdom.

Hermann Hesse

Siddhartha · 1922

★ 6.2

Song · Reggae music

Don't gain the world and lose your soul, Wisdom is better than silver and gold.

Bob Marley

Zion Train · 1980

★ 5.5

Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go.

1805

★ 5.4

Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.

Alfred Tennyson

Poems · 1842

★ 5.4

With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.

Job

Job 12:12 · 500 BC

★ 4.4

Wisdom is the principal thing.

Proverbs 4:7

686 BC

★ 4.0

Play · Tragedy (play)

Mere cleverness is not wisdom.

Euripides

Bacchae · 405 BC

★ 3.9

Almanac

The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom spun too fine.

Benjamin Franklin

1746

★ 3.9

Poem · Philosophical literature

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

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

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell · 1793

★ 3.9

Play · Comedy (play)

William Shakespeare

As You Like It · 1616

★ 3.8

Poem · Religious literature · Epic poem

The first and wisest of them all professed To know this only, that he nothing knew.

John Milton

Paradise Regained · 1671

★ 3.8

Pamphlet · Political literature

Wisdom is not the purchase of a day.

Thomas Paine

The Crisis · 1776

★ 3.8

Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to purchase.

We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.

1827

★ 3.8

Novel · Modernist literature

Marcel Proust

In Search of Lost Time · 1919

★ 3.8

But where shall wisdom be found?

Job

Job 28:12 · 500 BC

★ 3.7

Play · Tragic play · Greek theater

Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering.

Aeschylus

Agamemnon · 458 BC

★ 3.7

To be conscious that you are ignorant is a great step to knowledge.

Benjamin Disraeli

Sybil · 1845

★ 3.6

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Proverbs 9:10

686 BC

★ 3.6

Religious literature · Wisdom literature

The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure; and he that hath little business shall become wise.

Ben Sira

175 BC

★ 3.6

Authority without wisdom is like a heavy axe without an edge, fitter to bruise than polish.

Anne Bradstreet

1867

★ 3.6

Learning does not consist only of knowing what we must or we can do, but also of knowing what we could do and perhaps should not do.

Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose · 1980

★ 3.6

Our hair turns white with our ripening as though to fly away in some coming wind, bearing the seed of what we know.

Wendell Berry

1980

★ 3.5

Philosophical literature

If we are not yet able to serve man, how can we serve spiritual beings?... If we do not yet know about life how can we know about death?

Confucius

Analects · 221 BC

★ 2.4

And what is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.

Geoffrey Chaucer

The Canterbury Tales · 1400

★ 2.3

Great men are not always wise.

Elihu

Job 32:9 · 500 BC

★ 2.2

Play · Greek tragedy · Tragedy (play)

Wisdom outweighs any wealth.

Sophocles

Antigone · 442 BC

★ 2.2

Scientific literature

No man is wise at all times.

Pliny the Elder

77 BC

★ 2.2

There is a wisdom of the Head, and...a wisdom of the Heart.

Charles Dickens

Hard Times: For These Times · 1854

★ 2.2

Philosophical literature

By first recognizing false goods, you begin to escape the burden of their influence; then afterwards true goods may gain possession of your spirit.

Boethius

The Consolation of Philosophy · 523

★ 2.1

Psychological literature

The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.

William James

The Principles of Psychology · 1890

★ 2.1

Presocratic fragment · Fragment · Philosophical literature

Much learning does not teach understanding.

Heraclitus

★ 2.1