Aphorisms Galore!

Wisdom and Ignorance

327 aphorisms  ·  10 comments

Aphorisms in This Category

tiny.ag/k0emebpg  ·  submitted 2011 by peter

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one.

Neil Postman, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Law and Politics

tiny.ag/np6qfeud  ·  submitted 1997

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (audio cassette)

Everything we really need to know we learned in kindergarten.

Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bdh0f7mw  ·  submitted 1997

Creative minds always have been known to survive any kind of bad training.

Anna Freud, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6b9j37a4  ·  submitted 1997

Wise men don't need advice; fools don't take it.

Benjamin Franklin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6pua1ipj  ·  submitted 1997

Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.

Benjamin Franklin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/x06lwkz4  ·  submitted 1997

Life's tragedy is that we get old to soon and wise too late.

Benjamin Franklin, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/ow2rizet  ·  submitted 1998

In order to keep an open mind, I am trying to avoid learning anything.

Ashleigh Brilliant, Brilliant Thoughts (copyright info: www.ashleighbrilliant.com), in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6hcujeiu  ·  submitted 1997

tiny.ag/wagakfth  ·  submitted 1999

Learning to shrug is the beginning of wisdom.

Sarah Ban Breathnach, Simple Abundance, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/inomue9p  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

There is no intellectual exercise which is not ultimately useless.

Jorge Luis Borges, "Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote", in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/bza7uu5d  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

My advanced age has taught me the resignation of being Borges.

Jorge Luis Borges, "El informe de Brodie", in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/kiytmq1q  ·  submitted 1999 by Erwin van Moll

I am not sure that I exist, actually. I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors... Perhaps I would have liked to be my father, who wrote but has the decency of not publishing.

Jorge Luis Borges, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/hfx4m7bz  ·  submitted 1998 by David Shorr

The Satyricon (paperback)

Wisdom and beauty form a very rare combination

Petronius Arbiter, The Satyricon, XCIV, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/cxkiivxs  ·  submitted 1997

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/syqg9cuz  ·  submitted 1997

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

Epictetus, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/fbo95pnn  ·  submitted 1997

In a philosophical dispute, he gains most who is defeated, since he learns most.

Epicurus, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/b8jzieda  ·  submitted 1997 by David Epstein

Do two wrongs make a right? Yes. The right to be wrong.

David Epstein, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/6rk1jdhd  ·  submitted 1997

He who wonders discovers that this in itself is wonder.

M. C. Escher, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/y7qkjsrf  ·  submitted 1997

Uncertainty and mystery are energies of life. Don't let them scare you unduly, for they keep boredom at bay and spark creativity.

R. I. Fitzhenry, in Wisdom and Ignorance

tiny.ag/sefftpkt  ·  submitted 1997

Horse sense is the thing a horse has which keeps it from betting on people.

W. C. Fields, in Wisdom and Ignorance