Unwise Quotes - Page 3

• Wisdom is the booby prize given when you've been unwise.

  Piet Pieterszoon Hein

  Given, Prize

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• I cross my arms. "It was a two minute conversation." "I don't think a smaller time frame makes it less unwise." He furrows his eyebrows and touches the corner of my bruised eye with his fingertips. My head jerks back, but he doesn't take his hand away. Instead he sighs. "You know, if you could just learn to attack first, you might do better." "Attack first?" I say. "How will that help?" "You're fast. If you can get a few good hits in before they know what's going on, you could win." He shrugs, and his hand falls.

  Veronica Roth

  Fall, Eye, Winning

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• He picked some unwise words. Saying, “I’ll enjoy killing you for my lord”, is just not the way to make my acquaintance.

  Charlaine Harris

  Way, Killing, Lord

  Charlaine Harris (2009). “Dead and Gone: A Sookie Stackhouse Novel”, p.91, Penguin

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• To judge wisely, we must know how things appear to the unwise.

  George Eliot

  Wisdom, Knowledge, Judging

  George Eliot (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated)”, p.3078, Delphi Classics

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• Human nature is pretty well balanced; for every lacking virtue there is a rough substitute that will serve at a pinch--as cunning is the wisdom of the unwise, and ferocity the courage of the coward.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Coward, Human Nature, Virtue

  Ambrose Bierce, S. T. Joshi, David E. Schultz (1998). “A Sole Survivor: Bits of Autobiography”, p.238, Univ. of Tennessee Press

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• People, Reacher was certain about. Dogs were different. People had freedom of choice. If a man or a woman ran snarling toward him, they did so because they chose to. They were asking for whatever they got. His response was their problem. But dogs were different. No free will. Easily misled. It raised an ethical problem. Shooting a dog because it had been induced to do something unwise was not the sort of thing Reacher wanted to do.

  Lee Child

  Dog, Men, People

  Lee Child (2006). “Die Trying: A Jack Reacher Novel”, p.215, Penguin

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• He was sound asleep, his long legs stretched out in front of him, the blessed fire blazing, an empty bottle of wine by his side. He hadn't been shaved recently, and he looked rumpled, dissolute and beautiful. Like a fallen angel. She moved to stand in front of him and pointed the pistol directly at his heart. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he murmured, and then he opened his extraordinary eyes. "It's always unwise to shoot the man you're in love with.

  Anne Stuart

  Beautiful, Blessed, Eye

  Anne Stuart (2012). “The Devil's Waltz”, p.254, Harlequin

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• Breathe in, breath out. Oxygen is carcinogenic and likely puts a limit on our life span. It would be unwise though, to try to extend life by not breathing at all. Which of us doesn't do it? Either we loll in anaerobic stupor, too afraid to fill our lungs with risky beauty, or we roll out fire like dragons, destroying the world we love. I try not to burn up my world with rage. It is so hard.

  Jeanette Winterson

  Fire, Dragons, Oxygen

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• Expect nothing, live frugally on surprise. Become a stranger to need of pity. Or if compassion be freely given out, take only enough. Stop short of the urge to plead, then purge away the need. Wish for nothing larger than your own small heart or greater than a star. Tame wild disappointment with caress, unmoved and cold. Make of it a parka for your soul. Discover the reason why so tiny human midget exists at all, so scared and so unwise. But expect nothing, live frugally on surprise.

  Alice Walker

  Stars, Disappointment, Heart

  "Anything We Love Can Be Saved". Book by Alice Walker, June, 1997.

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• I think if you look at Medicare and Medicaid, the premise was that government needs to provide some assistance to people who aren't able to take care of themselves. I think we all share that goal, Republicans and Democrats. I don't think anybody's gonna go back now and say, Let's abolish, or reduce, Medicare and Medicaid. But as we confront the challenges and the responsibilities of our time - from here on - how do we serve more people or different people who are in need of financial assistance? Just forever having the government expand to address all of that seems unwise.

  Tim Pawlenty

  Responsibility, Thinking, Goal

  Source: www.esquire.com

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• That is ever the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at what is unusual; the wise man wonders at the usual.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Wise, Men, Differences

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2004). “A Dream Too Wild: Emerson Meditations for Every Day of the Year”, p.7, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations

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• Partial legalization, as some are suggesting, is a dangerous path, and we need only look at France and Germany to see how unwise it is to create a permanent underclass.

  Zoe Lofgren

  Immigration, Germany, Needs

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• A desire for truth is by no means a need for certitude and it would be unwise to confuse one with the other.

  Andre Gide

  Honesty, Mean, Desire

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• Is there a more pitiable spectacle than that of a wife contending with others for that charm in her husband's sight which no philters and no prayers can renew when once it has fled forever?
  Women are so unwise. Love is like a bird's song beautiful and eloquent when heard in forest freedom, harsh and worthless in repetition when sung from behind prison bars.
  You cannot secure love by vigilance, by environment, by captivity. What use is it to keep the person of a man beside you if his soul be truant from you?

  Ouida

  Beautiful, Song, Prayer

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• It would be unwise to condemn as irrational the practice of devouring the heart and liver of an adversary while yet warm. For the highest spiritual working one must choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force; a male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory.

  Aleister Crowley

  Spiritual, Children, Heart

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• Did either the nonexistent or the measured response after a series of attacks on Americans the past decade - in Lebanon, Africa, Saudi Arabia, New York, and Yemen - suggest to our terrorist enemies that it was wrong and unwise to kill reasonable and affable people, or did the easy killing imply that self-absorbed and pampered Lotus-eaters would not much care who or how many were butchered as long as it was within reasonable numbers and spread out over time?

  Victor Davis Hanson

  New York, Past, Numbers

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• I believe that President Clinton considered the legal merits of the arguments for the pardon as he understood them, and he rendered his judgment, wise or unwise, on the merits.

  John Podesta

  Wise, Believe, President

  "Democratic fund-raiser takes Fifth Amendment in pardons probe" by March 1, 2001, www.cnn.com. March 1, 2001.

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• Some tears belong to us because we are unfortunate; others, because we are humane; many, because we are mortal. But most are caused by our being unwise. It is these last only that of necessity produce more.

  Leigh Hunt

  Tears, Lasts, Produce

  Leigh Hunt (1853). “The Religion of the Heart: A Manual of Faith and Duty”, p.27

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• Within a single scene, it seems to be unwise to have access to the inner reflections of more than one character. The reader generally needs a single character as the means of perception, as the character to whom the events are happening, as the character with whom he is to empathize in order to have the events of the writing happen to him.

  John Ciardi

  Writing, Character, Mean

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• It would be unwise to say the least, irresponsible of us at the TSA, at the Homeland Security Department not to evolve our technology to match the changing threat environment that we inhabit.

  Janet Napolitano

  Technology, Tsa, Would Be

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• History shows that great economic and social forces flow like a tide over communities only half conscious of that which is befalling them. Wise statesmen foresee what time is thus bringing, and try to shape institutions and mold men's thoughts and purposes in accordance with the change that is silently coming on. The unwise are those who bring nothing constructive to the process, and who greatly imperil the future of mankind by leaving great questions to be fought out between ignorant change on one hand and ignorant opposition to change on the other.

  John Stuart Mill

  Wise, Men, Hands

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• The number one piece of advice I would share is to recruit a mentor. Find someone you admire who is at least one generation older, and has no direct authority over you. Lack of context and perspective can cost you months and years--with a bad career choice, an unwise relocation, short-term negotiating posture, and, generally speaking, sophomoric thinking.

  Bing Gordon

  Thinking, Years, Careers

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• Our own worst enemy cannot harm us as much as our unwise thoughts. No one can help us as much as our own compassionate thoughts.

  Gautama Buddha

  Life, Worst Enemy, Mindfulness

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• There is an ancient Indian saying that something lives only as long as the last person who remembers it. My people have come to trust memory over history. Memory, like fire, is radiant and immutable while history serves only those who seek to control it, those who douse the flame of memory in order to put out the dangerous fire of truth. Beware these men for they are dangerous themselves and unwise. Their false history is written in the blood of those who might remember and of those who seek the truth.

  Floyd Red Crow Westerman

  Life, Truth, Memories

  "Fictional character: Albert Hosteen". "The X-Files", (1993–2002, 2016–18), Season 3. The Blessing Way [3.01], September 22, 1995.

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• Nothing did more to spur the boom in stocks than the decision made by the New York Federal Reserve bank, in the spring of 1927, to cut the rediscount rate. Benjamin Strong, Governor of the bank, was chief advocate of this unwise measure, which was taken largely at the behest of Montagu Norman of the Bank of England....At the time of the Banks action I warned of its consequences....I felt that sooner or later the market had to break.

  Bernard Baruch

  Strong, Money, New York

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