Quotes about Wisdom

When you are in the dark, listen, and God will give you a very precious message.

My self-confidence, love of wisdom, and desire to change the world were rooted in that brief period, when I climbed out of despair to rebirth.

Most of us fear that in growing old, we'll become a shell of ourselves. But, of course, it's the youthful versions of ourselves that are our shells; we must leave them behind like a snakeskin. We must grow out of ourselves to grow beyond our old limits, or else risk being suffocated by the sediment of our own history.

I now believe in growing old gratefully, not gracefully. I haven't found the secret to life, or love, or eternal youth. But I do know now that youth is not the blossom but the bud, and that though one cannot always be young and wild, if you are willing to learn, to grow, to outrun the mileposts of your own wildest dreams, you can always be winsome and lucky, lovely and free.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received was from my grandmother, who said, "A woman always has to keep something of her own, even if it's a jar of quarters." The other was from my agent, another wise woman, who told me twenty years ago: "You don't have to tell everything you know.

no one finds a braggart wise. And once I no longer thought of listening as "waiting to talk," I began to have more meaningful conversations.

Experience alone opens a door, but intellectual framing and reflection are required if meaning is to be made of the experience.

Give away everything you know, and more will come back to you.

Foolishness is more than being stupid, that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance.

The fatal flaw of human wisdom is that it promises that you can change your relationships without needing to change yourself. Every painful thing we experience in relationships is meant to remind us of our need for God. And every good thing we experience is meant to be a metaphor of what we can only find in Him.... We settle for the satisfaction of human relationships when they were meant to point us to the perfect relational satisfaction found only with God.

Winning the war of words involves choosing our words carefully. It is not just about the words we say, but also about the words we choose not to say.

The Bible tells you that real peace is found in resting in the wisdom of the One who holds all of your "what-ifs" and "if-onlys" in his loving hands.