Wise Quotes about Moderation

Modern cynics and skeptics... see no harm in paying those
to whom they entrust the minds of their children
a smaller wage than is paid to those to whom
they entrust the care of their plumbing.
- John F. Kennedy

Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world
that we must love our enemies - or else?
The chain reaction of evil -
hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars -
must be broken, or else we shall be plunged
into the dark abyss of annihilation.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The task of the modern educator
is not to cut down jungles,
but to irrigate deserts.
- C.S. Lewis

Social progress can be measured
by the social position of the female sex.
- Karl Marx
(German philosopher and political economist
whose ideas are credited as the foundation of modern communism)

During his training, a baseball player strives
to make each swing better than the last.
The repetition of a faulty swing would be worse than useless.
It would ingrain bad habits.
The same is true of emotional responses.
If we allow ourselves to continue to have the same angry responses,
we just entrench our anger habit.
But if we strive - through consciousness, visualization, and coaching -
to moderate our anger response,
over time, we can train ourselves to respond
to events as we choose - without anger.
You can't magically be free from anger tomorrow,
but you can put yourself on your own training program
that will reduce the frequency and intensity
of your anger response day by day, year by year.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Mr. Attlee is a very modest man.
Indeed he has a lot to be modest about.
- Winston Churchill

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden

No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)

Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln

I do not know whether I was then
a man dreaming I was a butterfly,
or whether I am now
a butterfly dreaming I am a man.
- Zhuangzi

Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu

If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

You cannot build character and courage by
taking away a man's initiative and independence.
- Abraham Lincoln

You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl

A wise man can learn more from a foolish question
than a fool can learn from a wise answer.
- Bruce Lee

All the works of man have their origin in creative fantasy.
What right have we then to depreciate imagination.
- Carl Jung

A wise man will make haste to forgive,
because he knows the true value of time,
and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
- Samuel Johnson

Man becomes great exactly in the degree
in which he works for the welfare of his fellow-men.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The man who is awakened, lives in such a way
that he leaves no footprints.
- Osho quoting The Buddha

When you are offended at any man's fault,
turn to yourself and study your own failings.
Then you will forget your anger.
- Epictetus

A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on.
- John F. Kennedy

All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

A man should look for what is,
and not for what he thinks should be.
- Albert Einstein

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live
that his happiness shall depend
as little as possible on external things.
- Epictetus

There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz

A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

The Universe is one great kindergarten for man.
Everything that exists has brought
with it its own peculiar lesson.
- Orison Swett Marden

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

The man who goes alone can start today;
but he who travels with another
must wait till that other is ready.
- Henry David Thoreau

Early to bed and early to rise,
makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
- Benjamin Franklin

Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer

I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates

It is not the man who has too little,
but the man who craves more, that is poor.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

We must, however, acknowledge, as it seems to me,
that man with all his noble qualities...
still bears in his bodily frame
the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.
- Charles Darwin

As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer

Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb

Any man who reads too much
and uses his own brain too little
falls into lazy habits of thinking.
- Albert Einstein

We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks-
if we agree with him.
- Mark Twain

The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard

If a man empties his purse into his head,
no man can take it away from him.
An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
- Benjamin Franklin

If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau

Science gives man knowledge, which is power;
religion gives man wisdom, which is control.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.

Wisdom Quotes