I now myself live, in every detail, striving for wisdom, while I formerly merely worshipped and idolized the wise.

The guidelines for achieving wisdom consist of three leading maxims: 1) Think for yourself; 2) (in communication with other people) Put yourself in the place of the other person; 3) Always think by remaining faithful to your own self.

Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity.

Do you think I need anything else?” “You could do with some sense,” came the reply. “Some faculty to enable you to recognize wisdom and incline you to respect and obey it.

Of writing well, be sure, the secret lies
In wisdom :therefore study to be wise.

You need diplomacy and not slogans. This is the place for wisdom, the place for seeking windows that will take you to the objective.

If you would talk less nonsense, you would remember more sense.

In seeking wisdom, the first step is silence; the second, listening; the third, remembering; the fourth practicing; the fifth, teaching others

Remind yourself that all men assert that wisdom is the greatest good, but that there are few who strenuously seek out that greatest good.

So, listen, to yourself and to those with whom you are speaking. Your wisdom then consists not of the knowledge you already have, but the continual search for knowledge, which is the highest form of wisdom.

You must cultivate your wisdom and spirit. Polish your wisdom: learn public justice, distinguish between good and evil, study the Ways of different arts one by one. When you cannot be deceived by men you will have realized the wisdom of strategy.

Cautiousness in judgment is nowadays to be recommended to each and every one: if we gained only one incontestable truth every ten years from each of our philosophical writers the harvest we reaped would be sufficient. … To grow wiser means to learn to know better and better the faults to which this instrument with which we feel and judge can be subject.

We want to see the world clearly and know what’s what. But once we’re past the first stage of wisdom, the next stage involves adapting to new changes. We don’t get wise just by adding and adding. We also need to subtract.

Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.