Meaningful wisdom quotes on life, love and relationships. “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
They say wisdom comes with age — it takes time to go through certain experiences and gather knowledge. Sometimes it takes even longer to draw the right lessons from what we’ve been through, so that we can later make better life decisions.
Wisdom is something we can only hope to attain before we’re too old. After all, the time we’re given can be well spent or wasted, and being 100 years old doesn’t automatically turn you into a wise person.
The good news is that wisdom can be cultivated. Being wise is basically a combination of smart and experienced. While some people seem to have lived it all in 20 years of life, most young people “lack” experience. So the best way to gain wisdom while still young is to learn from other people’s mistakes.
Whether it’s love, friendship or life in general, we can sometimes protect ourselves from experiencing sadness or pain. Of course, things don’t always happen the same for all of us, but it can’t hurt to take our elders’ advice into consideration.
Here are 100 wisdom quotes about life, love, friendship, relationship and marriage
Wisdom quotes about life
A little foolishness, enough to enjoy life, and a little wisdom to avoid the errors, that will do.
OSHO
There is no normal life that is free of pain. It’s the very wrestling with our problems that can be the impetus for our growth.
MR. ROGERS (more Mr. Rogers quotes)
Don’t gain the world and lose your soul, wisdom is better than silver or gold.
BOB MARLEY
Life is pain. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
WILLIAM GOLDMAN
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
Life is a question and how we live it is our answer.
GARY KELLER
Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but sometimes, playing a poor hand well.
JACK LONDON
Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Life is essentially an endless series of problems. The solution to one problem is merely the creation of the next one. Don’t hope for a life without problems. There’s no such thing. Instead, hope for a life full of good problems.
MARK MANSON
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
WILLIAM JAMES
Life isn’t a matter of milestones, but of moments.
ROSE KENNEDY
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you’ve imagined.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
Remember: the more you expect things to be a certain way, the more disappointed you’ll be. Accept life as it is. You’ll be free.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.
CONFUCIUS (more Confucius quotes)
Be willing to sacrifice what you think you have today for the life that you want tomorrow.
NEIL STRAUSS
Life has no meaning unless one lives it with a will, at least to the limit of one’s will.
PAUL GAUGUIN
If life is a video game, the graphics are great, but the plot is confusing and the tutorial is way too long.
ELON MUSK
Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
JOHN LENNON
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
HELEN KELLER
Wisdom quotes from the Bible
Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.
JAMES 3:13
Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not long life bring understanding?
JOB 12:12
The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding.
PROVERBS 4:7
When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
PROVERBS 11:2
Where there is strife, there is pride, but wisdom is found in those who take advice.
PROVERBS 13:10
Even fools are thought wise if they keep silent, and discerning if they hold their tongues.
PROVERBS 17:28
The mouths of the righteous utter wisdom, and their tongues speak what is just.
PSALM 37:30
But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere.
JAMES 3:17
Fools give full vent to their rage, but the wise bring calm in the end.
PROVERBS 29:11
Wisdom quotes about God
To the person who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness, but to the sinner he gives the task of gathering and storing up wealth to hand it over to the one who pleases God. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.
ECCLESIASTES 2:26
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
CORINTHIANS 1:25
For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding.
PROVERBS 2:6
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.
PROVERBS 1:7
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.
PROVERBS 3:7
If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.
JAMES 1:5
Wisdom quotes about love
Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
ST. AUGUSTINE
You’re never wrong if you love and help people.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Three things in life your health, your mission, and the people you love. That’s it.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Don’t search for the meaning of life. Simply be present for the people you love.
MAXIME LAGACÉ
Love must be as much a light as it is a flame.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
A loving heart is the truest wisdom.
CHARLES DICKENS
The only thing we never get enough of is love; and the only thing we never give enough of is love.
HENRY MILLER
Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
RUMI (more Rumi quotes)
Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart and the senses.
LAO TZU
When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace.
JIMI HENDRIX
Love does not consist of gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY
Age does not protect you from love, but love to some extent protects you from age.
JEANNE MOREAU
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.
OSCAR WILDE (more quotes from favorite authors)
Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.
PAULO COELHO
Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.
VINCENT VAN GOGH
The more one judges, the less one loves.
HONORE DE BALZAC
Love is a better teacher than duty.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
Where there is love there is life.
MAHATMA GANDHI
Wisdom quotes on friendship
A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.
WALTER WINCHELL
True friendship comes when the silence between two people is comfortable.
DAVID TYSON
Don’t make friends who are comfortable to be with. Make friends who will force you to lever yourself up.
THOMAS J. WATSON
You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.
DALE CARNEGIE
Friendship is the hardest thing in the world to explain. It’s not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything.
MUHAMMAD ALI
Friends show their love in times of trouble, not in happiness.
EURIPIDES
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
CLIFTON FADIMAN
If you go looking for a friend, you’re going to find they’re very scarce. If you go out to be a friend, you’ll find them everywhere.
ZIG ZIGLAR
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
WOODROW T. WILSON
Anybody can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend’s success.
OSCAR WILDE
Do not keep on with a mockery of friendship after the substance is gone but part, while you can part friends. Bury the carcass of friendship: it is not worth embalming.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
ANAIS NIN
If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.
MAXWELL MALTZ
A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.
BERNARD MELTZER
Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
The best time to make friends is before you need them.
ETHEL BARRYMORE
Wisdom quotes on relationships
Play iterated games. All the returns in life, whether in wealth, relationships, or knowledge, come from compound interest.
NAVAL RAVIKANT
What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.
CONFUCIUS
Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.
OSCAR WILDE
In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take.
ANTHONY ROBBINS
In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone.
AUDREY HEPBURN
Never idealize others. They will never live up to your expectations. Don’t over-analyze your relationships. Stop playing games. A growing relationship can only be nurtured by genuineness.
LEO F. BUSCAGLIA
Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
MARCEL PROUST
Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you believe that you too can become great.
MARK TWAIN
Whenever you’re in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude.
WILLIAM JAMES
Wisdom quotes on marriage
By all means marry; if you get a good wife, you’ll become happy; if you get a bad one, you’ll become a philosopher.
SOCRATES
The great marriages are partnerships. It can’t be a great marriage without being a partnership.
HELEN MIRREN
There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion or company than a good marriage.
MARTIN LUTHER
Husband and wife relationships are like the relationship of Tom and Jerry. Though they are teasing and fighting, but can’t live without each other.
UNKNOWN
A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.
MIGNON MCLAUGHLIN
A great marriage is not when the ‘perfect couple’ comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.
DAVE MEURER
A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love.
PEARL S. BUCK
Marriage is not about age; it’s about finding the right person.
SOPHIA BUSH
It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Wisdom quotes about life lessons
Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON
The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.
SOCRATES (more Socrates quotes)
By three methods, we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
CONFUCIUS
A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can’t play the part of a wise man.
MALCOLM X (more Malcolm X quotes)
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which bridge to burn.
DAVID RUSSELL
Wise men speak because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
PLATO (more Plato quotes)
When it hurts observe. Life is trying to teach you something.
ANITA KRIZZAN
The trick in life is learning how to deal with it.
HELEN MIRREN
Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.
RUMI (more Zen quotes)
Time means a lot to me because, you see, I, too, am also a learner and am often lost in the joy of forever developing and simplifying. If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.
BRUCE LEE
If there’s a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.
LEV GROSSMAN
