Wisdom of the Ages Quotes

Study the past, if you would divine the future.

That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it.

Miss not the discourse of the elders.

I think there's value in experience and observations that link past to present.

The reading of all good books is like a conversation with the finest minds of past centuries.

I've finally become an old guy.

For the first time in human history, there are no elders anymore who know what young people know.

Wisdom doesn't necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.

For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.

Old Muttonhead

There's a lot to be learned by watching. I think the younger generation could fare a lot better in their game if they could sit down and watch some of the games of the past.

Even hoar hairs [elderly scholars] have something to learn; and old age, it would seem, cannot in all respects be trusted for wisdom

If Confucius wasn't born, the long night would have no bright lamp.

History is the best guide to the future.

One should proceed with caution. We may simply not be wise enough to do some of the kinds of engineering things that people are talking about doing.

When we looked at the life cycle in our 40s, we looked to old people for wisdom. At 80, though, we look at other 80-year-olds to see who got wise and who not. Lots of old people don't get wise, but you don't get wise unless you age.

Young people, you need the wisdom of age, just as some of us older ones need your enthusiasm for life.

Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches.

When I was a boy, the priest, my uncle, carefully inculcated upon me this proverb, which I then learned and have ever since kept in my mind: 'Dico tibi verum, Libertas optima rerum; Nunquam servili, sub nexu vivito, fili.' 'I tell you a truth: Liberty is the best of things, my son; never live under any slavish bond.'

Who knows for what we live, and struggle, and die? Wise men write many books, in words too hard to understand. But this, the purpose of our lives, the end of all our struggle, is beyond all human wisdom.

With the ancient [person] is wisdom, and in length of days understanding.

I find it always pleasurable talking with young people, particularly those aspiring to be writers, out of nostalgia, and because I've always felt that we oldies can learn so much from them and draw from them inspiration in our flagging and rickety years.

Old politicians chew on wisdom past, And totter on in business to the last.

For the continued survival of our planet and humanity, it is crucial that certain discoveries and skills and inventions made by people over the years be passed on from one human generation to the next, from one person, face-to-face, to another.