Sage Quotes - Page 14

• Some would be sages if they did not believe they were so already.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Wisdom, Believe, Would Be

  "The Art of Worldly Wisdom". Book by Baltasar Gracián. Maxim 176, 1647.

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• How dear to the mind of the sage are the thoughts that are bred in loneliness; for there is as it were music at his heart, and he talketh within him as with friends.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Loneliness, Heart, Mind

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1839). “Proverbial philosophy: a book of thoughts and arguments”, p.185

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• All too willingly man sees himself as the centre of the universe, as something not belonging to the rest of nature but standing apart as a different and higher being. Many people cling to this error and remain deaf to the wisest command ever given by a sage, the famous "Know thyself" inscribed in the temple of Delphi.

  Konrad Lorenz

  Men, Errors, People

  Konrad Lorenz (2005). “On Aggression”, p.99, Routledge

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• Whatever statesman or sage will effect reforms upon a gigantic or godlike scale must begin with the young.

  Horace Mann

  Reform, Young, Scales

  Horace Mann (1867). “Thoughts”, p.28

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• When an alluring woman comes in at the door," warningly traced the austere Kien-fi on the margin of his well-known essay, "discretion may be found up the chimney". It is incredible that beneath this ever-timely reminder an obscure disciple should have added the words: "The wiser the sage, the more profound the folly.

  Ernest Bramah

  Doors, Should Have, Profound

  Ernest Bramah (1963). “The Celestial Omnibus”

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• Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

  Dogen

  Believe, Events, May

  "Things Overheard at the Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma". Book by Dogen translated by Reiho Masunaga, June 1975.

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• Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope.

  Ramana Maharshi

  Action, Intense, Rotating

  "Abide as the Self: The Essential Teachings of Ramana Maharshi". Documentary, January 1, 1998.

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• The strange and wonderful Book of Job treats of the same subject as we are discussing; its contents are a fiction, conceived for the purpose of explaining the different opinions which people hold on Divine Providence. ...This fiction, however, is in so far different from other fictions that it includes profound ideas and great mysteries, removes great doubts, and reveals the most important truths. I will discuss it as fully as possible; and I will also tell you the words of our Sages that suggested to me the explanation of this great poem.

  Maimonides

  Jobs, Book, Ideas

  "Guide for the Perplexed". Book by Maimonides, Ch.22, 1190.

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• Twas the saying of an ancient sage that humour was the only test of gravity, and gravity of humour. For a subject which would not bear raillery was suspicious; and a jest which would not bear a serious examination was certainly false wit.

  Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury

  Examination, Tests, Bears

  "Characteristics", Letter Concerning Enthusiasm, Part I. Sect. V, as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations, p. 673-74, 1922.

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• The sage attends to the belly, and not to what he sees.

  Laozi

  Taoism, Belly

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• When the sage stands above people, they are not oppressed. When he leads people, they are not obstructed. The world will exalt him and not grow tired of him.

  Laozi

  Tired, People, Taoism

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• The ancient sages never put their teachings in a systematic form. They spoke in paradoxes, for they were afraid of uttering half-truths. They began by talking like fools and ended by making their hearers wise.

  Okakura Kakuzo

  Wise, Teaching, Talking

  Okakura Kakuzo (2012). “The Book of Tea: Classic Edition”, p.22, Tuttle Publishing

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• Rhodora! If the sages ask thee why This charm is wasted on the earth and sky, Tell them, dear, that if eyes were made for seeing, Then Beauty is its own excuse for being.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Beauty, Eye, Sky

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1981). “The Portable Emerson: New Edition”, p.447, Penguin

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• Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet To think how monie counsels sweet, How monie lengthened sage advices, The husband frae the wife despises.

  Robert Burns

  Sweet, Husband, Thinking

  1790 'Tam o' Shanter. A Tale'.

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• We search the world for truth; we cull The good, the pure, the beautiful, From all old flower fields of the soul; And, weary seeker of the best, We come back laden from out quest, To find that all the sages said Is in the Book our mothers read.

  John Greenleaf Whittier

  Beautiful, Mother, Flower

  John Greenleaf Whittier (1873). “The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier”, p.342

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• In order that a people may be free, it is necessary that the governed be sages, and those who govern, gods.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Order, People, Liberty

  Napoleon Bonaparte “Napoleon in his own words from the French of Jules Bertaut”, Рипол Классик

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• Love is done when Loves begun, Sages say, But have Sages known?

  Emily Dickinson

  Love, Done, Known

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.568, Harvard University Press

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• So erst the Sage [Pythagoras] with scientific truth In Grecian temples taught the attentive youth; With ceaseless change how restless atoms pass From life to life, a transmigrating mass; How the same organs, which to-day compose The poisonous henbane, or the fragrant rose, May with to-morrow's sun new forms compile, Frown in the Hero, in the Beauty smile. Whence drew the enlighten'd Sage the moral plan, That man should ever be the friend of man; Should eye with tenderness all living forms, His brother-emmets, and his sister-worms.

  Erasmus Darwin

  Brother, Hero, Eye

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• Even to the sage who's doing Sahaja Samadhi, the great guru, I'd say: "Hey buddy, you know, I like the robes and everything, but remember, you're only touching infinity. And if you claim to be doing more, I think you're pretty much in the senses and the body and the mind because infinity is endless."

  Frederick Lenz

  Teacher, Thinking, Remember You

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• Those who sage as they age view aging not as a hardship but, rather, as a precious gift filled with promise and replete with possibilities. We may age graciously into simplicity and love, allowing the power from our sense of well-being to permeate the atmosphere around us, or we may vault into older age revved up and in high gear.

  Sue Thoele

  Views, Simplicity, Atmosphere

  Sue Patton Thoele (1998). “Freedoms After 50”, p.133, Conari Press

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• The sage says that all that is under heaven incurs the same law and the same fate.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Fate, Law, Heaven

  "Essais" by Michel de Montaigne, Book II, Ch. 12, 1595.

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• Thought paceth like a hoary sage, but imagination hath wings as an eagle.

  Martin Farquhar Tupper

  Wings, Eagles, Imagination

  Martin Farquhar Tupper (1853). “Proverbial Philosophy by Martin F. Tupper”, p.142

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• The Poet's License! 't is the right, Within the rule of duty, To look on all delightful things Throughout the world of beauty. To gaze with rapture at the stars That in the skies are glowing; To see the gems of perfect dye That in the woods are growing, And more than sage astronomer, And more than learned florist, To read the glorious homilies Of Firmament and Forest.

  John Godfrey Saxe

  Stars, Glowing, Sky

  John Godfrey Saxe (1866). “The Masquerade: and other poems”, p.25

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• But hail thou Goddess sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy, Whose saintly visage is too bright To hit the sense of human sight, And therefore to our weaker view O'erlaid with black, staid Wisdom's hue.

  John Milton

  Sight, Views, Black

  'Il Penseroso' (1645) l. 12

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• Once, when the days were ages, And the old Earth was young, The high gods and the sages From Nature's golden pages Her open secrets wrung.

  Richard Henry Stoddard

  Nature, Secret, Age

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