Human Wisdom Quotes - Page 2

• Faith is the leading grace in all our spiritual warfare and conflict; but all along while we live, it hath faithful company that adheres to it, and helps it. Love works, and hope works, and all other graces, — self-denial, readiness to the cross, — they all work and help faith. But when we come to die, faith is left alone. Now, try what faith will do.

  John Owen

  Leadership, Spiritual, Self

  "The Works of John Owen".

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• It is almost everywhere the case that soon after it is begotten the greater part of human wisdom is laid to rest in repositories.

  Georg C. Lichtenberg

  Library, Cases, Humans

  "Aphorisms". Book by Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. Notebook K 37, 1799.

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• Human wisdom remains always one and the same although applied to the most diverse objects and it is no more changed by their diversity than the sunshine is changed by the variety of objects which it illuminates.

  Rene Descartes

  Sunshine, Diversity, Experience

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• Spiritual knowledge is like a house built in the midst of secular and pagan knowledge, in which there is laid up, like a solid and well-secured chest, the knowledge of the inspired Scriptures and the inestimable riches they contain. Those who enter into the house will never at all be able to see those treasures unless this chest is opened for them. But it does not belong to human wisdom (cf. I Cor. 2:13) ever to be able to open it, so that the riches of the Spirit deposited in it remain unknown to all who are worldly.

  Symeon the New Theologian

  Christian, Spiritual, Cfs

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• All human wisdom works and has worries and grief as reward.

  Johann Georg Hamann

  Grief, Worry, Rewards

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• Doubtless, we are as slow to conceive of Paradise as of Heaven, of a perfect natural as of a perfect spiritual world. We see how past ages have loitered and erred. "Is perhaps our generation free from irrationality and error? Have we perhaps reached now the summit of human wisdom, and need no more to look out for mental or physical improvement?" Undoubtedly, we are never so visionary as to be prepared for what the next hour may bring forth.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Spiritual, Past, Errors

  Henry David Thoreau (2002). “The Essays of Henry D. Thoreau: Selected and Edited by Lewis Hyde”, p.122, North Point Press

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• Power in any Form . . . when directed only by human Wisdom and Benevolence is dangerous.

  John Adams

  Human Nature, Form, Dangerous

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• God never meant that man should scale the Heavens
  By strides of human wisdom. In his works,
  Though wondrous, he commands us in his word
  To seek him rather where his mercy shines.

  William Cowper

  God, Men, Shining

  William Cowper (1855). “The complete poetical works of William Cowper, with life and critical notice of his writings”, p.152

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• People thinking for themselves have more energy in their voice, than any government, which it is possible for human wisdom to invent; and every government not aware of this sacred truth will, at some period, be suddenly overturned.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Thinking, Government, Voice

  Mary Wollstonecraft, Janet Todd (1999). “A Vindication of the Rights of Men; A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution”, p.357, Oxford Paperbacks

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• We give credit to human wisdom when we should give credit to the divine guidance of God being exhibited through childlike people who were “foolish” enough to trust God’s wisdom and His supernatural equipment.

  Oswald Chambers

  Divine Guidance, People, Giving

  Oswald Chambers (2005). “My Utmost for His Highest”, Discovery House Pub

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• Government is a contrivance of human wisdom to provide for human wants. People have the right to expect that these wants will be provided for by this wisdom.

  Jimmy Carter

  Memorable, Government, People

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• The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Law, Acting

  Quoted in Heather Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of ...Johnson (1786)

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• Providence has given human wisdom the choice between two fates: either hope and agitation, or hopelessness and calm.

  Yevgeny Baratynsky

  Hope, Fate, Two

  "Two Fates" by Yevgeny Baratynsky, translated by Dmitri Obolensky, 1823.

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• Darling, replied Valentine, has not the count just told us that all human wisdom was contained in these two words,- "Wait and hope"?

  Alexandre Dumas

  Valentine, Two, Waiting

  Alexandre Dumas (2008). “The Count of Monte Cristo”, p.1083, OUP Oxford

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• We cannot convince a man to believe any more than we can raise the dead. Such things are the work of God's Spirit. Men are brought to faith only through the supernatural working of God, and He has promised to work-not through human wisdom or intellectual expertise, but through the preaching of Christ crucified and resurrected from the dead!

  Paul Washer

  Believe, Men, Intellectual

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• The Shambhala teachings are founded on the premise that there is basic human wisdom that can help to solve the world's problems. This wisdom does not belong to any one culture or religion, nor does it come only from the West or the East. Rather it is a tradition of human warrior-ship that has existed in many cultures at many times throughout history.

  Chogyam Trungpa

  Teaching, Warrior, World

  Chogyam Trungpa (2010). “The Collected Works of Chogyam Trungpa: Volume Eight: Great Eastern Sun; Shambhala; Selected Writings”, p.19, Shambhala Publications

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• International educational exchange is the most significant current project designed to continue the process of humanizing mankind to the point, we would hope, that men can learn to live in peace-eventually even to cooperate in constructive activities rather than compete in a mindless contest of mutual destruction....We must try to expand the boundaries of human wisdom, empathy and perception, and there is no way of doing that except through education.

  J. William Fulbright

  Education, Wisdom, Peace

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• Insights from myth, dreams, and intuitions, from glimpses of an invisible reality, and from perennial human wisdom provide us with hints and guesses about the meaning of life and what we are here for. Prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action are the means through which we grow and find meaning.

  Jean Shinoda Bolen

  Dream, Prayer, Mean

  Jean Shinoda Bolen (2007). “Close to the Bone: Life-Threatening Illness As A Soul Journey”, p.227, Conari Press

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• We cannot judge fully of men's works by what we see, or what is said and thought of them; for man is prone to depreciate that which is really important, and to exact and extol what is trivial and of little worth. Many things which are hidden and unrecognized of human wisdom are nevertheless valuable and vitally important.

  Orson F. Whitney

  Wisdom, Men, Judging

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• There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must of felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. " Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Hope, Children, Grief

  Alexandre Dumas (2016). “The Count Of Monte Cristo (Illustrated Edition of the Adventure Classic): Historical Thriller from the renowned French writer, known for The Three Musketeers, The Black Tulip, Twenty Years After, La Reine Margot and The Man in the Iron Mask”, p.1463, e-artnow (Open Publishing)

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• I firmly believe this ... that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better, than the builders of Babel: We shall be divided by our little partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and bye word down to future ages. And what is worse, mankind may hereafter from this unfortunate instance, despair of establishing governments by human wisdom and leave it to chance, war and conquest.

  Benjamin Franklin

  War, Believe, Bye

  Constitutional Convention Address on Prayer, delivered Thursday, June 28, 1787, Philadelphia, PA

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• We must refuse to lean upon the broken staff of human wisdom & cling to the gospel alone as the power of God to save a hardened humanity.

  Paul Washer

  Broken, Humanity, Staff

  Twitter post from Jul 06, 2013

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• Everyone who believes in God must have His revelation in his spirit, or else what he believes is not God but mere human wisdom, ideals or words. Such faith cannot endure the test.

  Watchman Nee

  Believe, Tests, Spirit

  Watchman Nee (2006). “Journeying Towards the Spiritual: A Digest of the Spiritual Man in 42 Lessons”, p.102, Christian Fellowship Publishers

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• The ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs.

  Friedrich August von Hayek

  Faith, Thinking, Government

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• To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Army, Pride, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.412

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