George Bernard ShawSourced
Do not do unto others as you would that they should do unto you. Their tastes may not be the same.
Source: Man and Superman, "Maxims for Revolutionists" (1903)
Checked quotes about wisdom
16 quotes with a known source.
PlatoSourced
The unexamined life is not worth living.
Source: Apology 38a — spoken by Socrates at his trial
ConfuciusSourced
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
Source: Analects 15.24, tr. James Legge
Lao TzuSourced
He who knows other men is discerning; he who knows himself is intelligent.
Source: Tao Te Ching, ch. 33, tr. James Legge
Lao TzuSourced
Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know.
Source: Tao Te Ching, ch. 56 (common rendering)
VoltaireSourced
Common sense is not so common.
Source: Philosophical Dictionary (1764)
Michel de MontaigneSourced
What do I know?
Source: His motto — "Que sais-je?" — Essays, Book II, ch. 12 (1580)
Michel de MontaigneSourced
To philosophize is to learn to die.
Source: Essays, Book I, ch. 20 (1580)
HeraclitusSourced
The way up and the way down are one and the same.
Source: Fragment B60
HoraceSourced
He who has begun has half done. Dare to be wise.
Source: Epistles I.2.40 ("Dimidium facti qui coepit habet; sapere aude")
Sun TzuSourced
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.
Source: The Art of War III.18, tr. Lionel Giles
Alexander PopeSourced
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
Source: An Essay on Criticism (1711)
George SantayanaSourced
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Often credited to Burke or Churchill.
Source: The Life of Reason, vol. 1 (1905)
John Stuart MillSourced
It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied.
Source: Utilitarianism, ch. 2 (1863)
Antoine de Saint-ExupérySourced
It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.
Source: The Little Prince, ch. 21 (1943)
William BlakeSourced
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
Source: The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790)
Famous, but not theirs
Quotes about wisdom that are usually credited to the wrong person.
Mark TwainNot theirs
History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.
Actually: The earliest known appearance is a 1970 poem by John Robert Colombo — sixty years after Twain's death.
Albert EinsteinNot theirs
Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Actually: Appears in a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous text and in Rita Mae Brown's novel Sudden Death (1983). Not in any Einstein source.
VoltaireNot theirs
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
Actually: Pierre-Marc-Gaston de Lévis, Maximes et réflexions (1808).
Bertrand RussellMisquoted
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
The real words: Smoothed from his essay "The Triumph of Stupidity" (1933): "the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."
H. L. MenckenMisquoted
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
The real words: Smoothed from Prejudices: Second Series (1920): "there is always a well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong."