130+ Knowledge and Wisdom Quotes to Inspire Learning, Growth, and the Power of Understanding

Knowledge and wisdom complement each other but serve distinct roles. Knowledge is the accumulation of information, facts, and skills gained through learning and experience. It equips us to understand the world and solve problems. Wisdom, however, is the ability to apply knowledge with good judgment, compassion, and insight. While knowledge shows us what is, wisdom guides us in understanding how and why to act. Together, they empower us to make thoughtful decisions, enriching our lives and the lives of others.

1. “The truest wisdom is a resolute determination.”
2. “Science investigates; religion interprets. Science gives man knowledge which is power; religion gives man wisdom which is control.”
3. “The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than my talent for absorbing positive knowledge.”
4. “Knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be.”
5. “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
6. “The attempt to combine wisdom and power has only rarely been successful and then only for a short while.”
7. “Imagination is more important than knowledge.”
8. “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”
9. “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.”
10. “Information is not knowledge.”
11. “Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
12. “There comes a time when the mind takes a higher plane of knowledge but can never prove how it got there.”
13. “All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own.”
14. “Self-knowledge comes from knowing other men.”
15. “We know accurately only when we know little, with knowledge doubt increases.”
16. “Doubt grows with knowledge.”
17. “This is the highest wisdom that I own; freedom and life are earned by those alone who conquer them each day anew.”
18. “Wisdom is found only in truth.”
19. “Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge.”
20. “In order to arrive at knowledge of the motions of birds in the air, it is first necessary to acquire knowledge of the winds, which we will prove by the motions of water in itself, and this knowledge will be a step enabling us to arrive at the knowledge of beings that fly between the air and the wind.”
21. “The natural desire of good men is knowledge.”
22. “Good men by nature, wish to know. I know that many will call this useless work… men who desire nothing but material riches and are absolutely devoid of that of wisdom, which is the food and only true riches of the mind.”
23. “All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, with the exception of the written word: which is its mechanical part.”
24. “All our knowledge has its origins in our perceptions.”
25. “Nature is the source of all true knowledge. She has her own logic, her own laws, she has no effect without cause nor invention without necessity.”
26. “For, verily, great love springs from great knowledge of the beloved object, and if you little know it, you will be able to love it only little or not at all.”
27. “Knowledge of the past and of the places of the earth is the ornament and food of the mind of man.”
28. “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it, and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it – this is knowledge.”
29. “I am not one who was born in the possession of knowledge; I am one who is fond of antiquity, and earnest in seeking it there.”
30. “To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.”
31. “They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.”
32. “Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.”
33. “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.”
34. “There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is imitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest.”
35. “By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.”
36. “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
37. “Our treasure lies in the beehive of our knowledge. We are perpetually on the way thither, being by nature winged insects and honey gatherers of the mind.”
38. “It is not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, that the lover of knowledge is reluctant to step into its waters.”
39. “Does wisdom perhaps appear on the earth as a raven which is inspired by the smell of carrion?”
40. “The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.”
41. “All men by nature desire knowledge.”
42. “Excellence, then, is a state concerned with choice, lying in a mean, relative to us, this being determined by reason and in the way in which the man of practical wisdom would determine it.”
43. “The virtue of justice consists in moderation, as regulated by wisdom.”
44. “To attain any assured knowledge about the soul is one of the most difficult things in the world.”
45. “The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching.”
46. “Opinion is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.”
47. “Knowledge without justice ought to be called cunning rather than wisdom.”
48. “Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.”
49. “Human behavior flows from three main sources: desire, emotion, and knowledge.”
50. “Cunning… is but the low mimic of wisdom.”
51. “And what, Socrates, is the food of the soul? Surely, I said, knowledge is the food of the soul.”
52. “Knowledge is true opinion.”
53. “A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
54. “Wisdom alone is the science of other sciences.”
55. “The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant.”
56. “There are three classes of men; lovers of wisdom, lovers of honor, and lovers of gain.”
57. “The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.”
58. “Knowledge becomes evil if the aim be not virtuous.”
59. “It is always more difficult to fight against faith than against knowledge.”
60. “If you want to know the taste of a pear, you must change the pear by eating it yourself. If you want to know the theory and methods of revolution, you must take part in revolution. All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience.”
61. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
62. “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
63. “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.”
64. “To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.”
65. “True knowledge exists in knowing that you know nothing.”
66. “Wisdom begins in wonder.”
67. “I decided that it was not wisdom that enabled poets to write their poetry, but a kind of instinct or inspiration, such as you find in seers and prophets who deliver all their sublime messages without knowing in the least what they mean.”
68. “To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.”
69. “Just as treasures are uncovered from the earth, so virtue appears from good deeds, and wisdom appears from a pure and peaceful mind. To walk safely through the maze of human life, one needs the light of wisdom and the guidance of virtue.”
70. “I am not the first Buddha who came upon Earth, nor shall I be the last. In due time, another Buddha will arise in the world – a Holy One, a supremely enlightened One, endowed with wisdom in conduct, auspicious, knowing the universe, an incomparable leader of men, a master of angels and mortals.”
71. “Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together with all the flesh and blood of my body! I welcome it! But I will not move from this spot until I have attained the supreme and final wisdom.”
72. “Ignorance is the curse of God; knowledge is the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.”
73. “Wisdom is a sacred communion.”
74. “All men are born with a nose and five fingers, but no one is born with a knowledge of God.”
75. “No group and no government can properly prescribe precisely what should constitute the body of knowledge with which true education is concerned.”
76. “Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”
77. “A thorough knowledge of the Bible is worth more than a college education.”
78. “There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”
79. “Knowledge is power.”
80. “Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.”
81. “There is a wisdom in this beyond the rules of physic: a man’s own observation what he finds good of and what he finds hurt of is the best physic to preserve health.”
82. “The desire of excessive power caused the angels to fall; the desire of knowledge caused men to fall.”
83. “Knowledge and human power are synonymous.”
84. “He that hath knowledge spareth his words.”
85. “The great end of life is not knowledge but action.”
86. “A prudent question is one-half of wisdom.”
87. “If the Great Way perishes there will morality and duty. When cleverness and knowledge arise great lies will flourish. When relatives fall out with one another there will be filial duty and love. When states are in confusion there will be faithful servants.”
88. “Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.”
89. “Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, don’t have knowledge.”
90. “Take from the philosopher the pleasure of being heard and his desire for knowledge ceases.”
91. “Although modesty is natural to man, it is not natural to children. Modesty only begins with the knowledge of evil.”
92. “What wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness?”
93. “The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art.”
94. “We can’t have full knowledge all at once. We must start by believing; then afterwards we may be led on to master the evidence for ourselves.”
95. “Love takes up where knowledge leaves off.”
96. “Wonder is the desire for knowledge.”
97. “My knowledge of electrical subjects was not acquired in a methodical manner but was picked up from such books as I could get hold of and from such experiments as I could make with my own hands.”
98. “We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man with all his noble qualities… still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”
99. “Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science.”
100. “Knowledge is love and light and vision.”
101. “It is beyond a doubt that all our knowledge begins with experience.”
102. “Intuition and concepts constitute… the elements of all our knowledge, so that neither concepts without an intuition in some way corresponding to them, nor intuition without concepts, can yield knowledge.”
103. “Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.”
104. “I had therefore to remove knowledge, in order to make room for belief.”
105. “All our knowledge begins with the senses, proceeds then to the understanding, and ends with reason. There is nothing higher than reason.”
106. “But although all our knowledge begins with experience, it does not follow that it arises from experience.”
107. “The improvement of understanding is for two ends: first, our own increase of knowledge; secondly, to enable us to deliver that knowledge to others.”
108. “Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.”
109. “No man’s knowledge here can go beyond his experience.”
110. “The only fence against the world is a thorough knowledge of it.”
111. “Where all is but dream, reasoning and arguments are of no use, truth and knowledge nothing.”
112. “Don’t only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine.”
113. “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.”
114. “Music is the one incorporeal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend.”
115. “I live in a country where music has very little success, though, exclusive of those who have forsaken us, we have still admirable professors and, more particularly, composers of great solidity, knowledge, and taste.”
116. “A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
117. “A writer of fiction is really… a congenital liar who invents from his own knowledge or that of other men.”
118. “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
119. “Suppose that we are wise enough to learn and know – and yet not wise enough to control our learning and knowledge, so that we use it to destroy ourselves? Even if that is so, knowledge remains better than ignorance.”
120. “If knowledge can create problems, it is not through ignorance that we can solve them.”
121. “The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.”
122. “I had rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent, than in the extent of my power and dominion.”
123. “For my own part, I would rather excel in knowledge of the highest secrets of philosophy than in arms.”
124. “How pathetically scanty my self-knowledge is compared with, say, my knowledge of my room. There is no such thing as observation of the inner world, as there is of the outer world.”
125. “We are sinful not only because we have eaten of the Tree of Knowledge, but also because we have not yet eaten of the Tree of Life. The state in which we are is sinful, irrespective of guilt.”
126. “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered at the White House – with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”
127. “I look forward to a great future for America – a future in which our country will match its military strength with our moral restraint, its wealth with our wisdom, its power with our purpose.”
128. “The greater our knowledge increases the more our ignorance unfolds.”
129. “The goal of education is the advancement of knowledge and the dissemination of truth.”
130. “Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”
131. “Whatever position I occupied, it was the result of colleagues – of my comrades in the movement – who had decided in their wisdom to use me for the purpose of focusing the attention of the country and the international community on me.”
132. “Just as we might take Darwin as an example of the normal extraverted thinking type, the normal introverted thinking type could be represented by Kant. The one speaks with facts, the other relies on the subjective factor. Darwin ranges over the wide field of objective reality, Kant restricts himself to a critique of knowledge.”
133. “Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth, and if a man does not know what a thing is, it is at least an increase in knowledge if he knows what it is not.”
134. “Knowledge rests not upon truth alone, but upon error also.”
135. “I believe it is universally understood and acknowledged that all men will ever act correctly, unless they have a motive to do otherwise.”
136. “When Southern people tell us they are no more responsible for the origin of slavery than we are, I acknowledge the fact. When it is said that the institution exists, and that it is very difficult to get rid of it in any satisfactory way, I can understand and appreciate the saying.”
137. “Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.”
138. “It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.”
139. “One can state, without exaggeration, that the observation of and the search for similarities and differences are the basis of all human knowledge.”