Wisdom does not fear ignorance, it does not fear doubts, it does not fear work and study, it fears one thing only: the claim that it knows that which it does not.
You need to study a lot to realize just how little you know.
— Montaigne
Never feel ashamed to ask something you do not know.
Always tell the truth, even if you know it to be unpleasant.
The one who is learned but does not apply what he has learned is akin to a man who plows but does not sow.
— Arabian wisdom (Albitis)
The one who studies philosophy and science will find that the greatest discoveries were made by people who thought that what everyone considered doubtless was merely probable.
— Lichtenberg
Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good.
— 1 Thessalonians 5:21
Spiritual food lacks nothing; what we lack is the ability to assimilate it. It is not the lack of air that prevents a dying man from breathing, but his inability to absorb it. All the elements—physical, intellectual and spiritual, which have existed or will someday exist in the world—are present in it even now. The work of wisdom is to grasp how to master them.
— Lucy Mallory
True wisdom lies not in knowing what is good and what should be done but in knowing what is best and what is less good, and, consequently, what should be done first and what later.
Wisdom consists more of the negative than of the positive: knowing what is unreasonable, what is unlawful, what must not be done.
