Pursuit of Wisdom Quotes

Wonder is the foundation of all philosophy; research, the progress; ignorance, the end. There is, by heavens, a strong and generous kind of ignorance that yields nothing, for honour and courage, to knowledge: an ignorance to conceive which needs no less knowledge than to conceive knowledge.

By realizing that we are ignorant of the most important things, we realize at the same time that the most important thing for us, or the one thing needful, is quest for knowledge of the most important things or quest for wisdom.

The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

The truth is found when men are free to pursue it.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

You seek for knowledge and wisdom as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been.

Young men and women, your education is ever important - to us, to you, and to God.

I feel a complete thirst for knowledge and an eager unrest to go further in it as well as satisfaction at every acquisition. There was a time when I believed that this alone could constitute the honor of mankind, and I had contempt for the ignorant rabble who know nothing.

The charm of knowledge would be small indeed, were it not that there is so much shame to be overcome on the way to it.

The gift of knowledge is the highest gift in the world.

The days on which one has been the most inquisitive are among the days on which one has been happiest.

Just as it is agreed that we all wish to be happy, so it is that we all wish to be wise, since no one without wisdom is happy.

My life has been a quest for knowledge and understanding, and I am nowhere near having achieved that. And it doesn't bother me in the least. I will die without having come up with the answers to many things in life.

Philosophy is a kind of journey, ever learning yet never arriving at the ideal perfection of truth.

A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom, and that the perfection of wisdom is what makes the happy life, although even the beginnings of wisdom make life bearable. Yet this conviction, clear as it is, needs to be strengthened and given deeper roots through daily reflection; making noble resolutions is not a important as keeping the resolutions you have made already.

One who is in search of knowledge should give up the search of pleasure and the one who is in search of pleasure should give up the search of knowledge.

One is seduced and battered in turn. The result is presumably wisdom. Wisdom! We are clinging to life like lizards. Why is it so difficult to assemble those things that really matter in life and to dwell among them only? I am referring to certain landscapes, persons, beasts, books, rooms, meteorological conditions, fruits. In fact, I insist on it. A letter is like a poem, it leaps into life and shows very clearly the marks, perhaps I should say thumbprints, of an unwilling or unready composer.

Our education must never stop. If it ends at the door of the classroom on graduation day, we will fail. And we will need the help of heaven to know which of the myriad things we could study we would most wisely learn. We cannot waste time entertaining ourselves when we have the chance to read or to listen to whatever will help us learn what is true and useful. Insatiable curiosity will be our hallmark.

There is no happiness where there is no wisdom.

To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates, a life of simplicity, independence, magnanimity and trust.

Wisdom that don't make us happier ain't worth plowing for.

In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Few among men are they who cross to the further shore. The others merely run up and down the bank on this side.

In search of Truth the hopeful zealot goes,But all the sadder tums, the more he knows!