In an aphorism, aptness counts for more than truth

Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

Der Aphorismus deckt sich nie mit der Wahrheit; er ist entweder eine halbe Wahrheit oder anderthalb.

Wisdom, itself, is often an abstraction associated not with fact or reality but with the man who asserts it and the manner of its assertion.

Beware of finding what you're looking for.

[<i>A favorite aphorism he often used</i>.]

For what, in the name of heaven, is more to be desired than wisdom? What is more to be prized? What is better for a man, what more worthy of his nature? Those who seek after it are called philosophers; and philosophy is nothing else, if one will translate the word into our idiom, than ‘the love of wisdom.’ Wisdom … is ‘the knowledge of things human and divine and of the causes by which those things are controlled.’ And if the man lives who would belittle the study of philosophy, I quite fail to see what in the world he would see fit to praise.

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.

To know oneself is the beginning of wisdom.

The wisdom of what a person says is in direct proportion to his progress in learning the holy scriptures — and I am not speaking of intensive reading or memorization, but real understanding and careful investigation of their meaning. Some people read them but neglect them; by their reading they profit in knowledge, by their neglect they forfeit understanding.

The esoteric level of philosophy reads as philosophia, which translates as both a love of knowledge and as the knowledge of love.

The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of ages, may be preserved by quotations.

Wisdom is learning what to overlook.

The people with this disposition believe that wisdom begins with an awareness of our own ignorance. We can design habits, arrangements, and procedures that partially compensate for the limits on our knowledge.

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.