Famous quotes containing the word wise:
“The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)
“He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing itnamely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (18351910)
“The wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)