Thomas Hobbes Quotes

The wise form right judgment of the present from what is past.

Wisdom before experience is only words; wisdom after experience is of no avail.

Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.

Prudence is a presumption of the future, contracted from the experience of time past.

Hindsight, usually looked down upon, is probably as valuable as foresight, since it does include a few facts.

Common sense is the measure of the possible; it is composed of experience and prevision; it is calculation applied to life.

Let no one trust so entirely to natural prudence as to persuade himself that it will suffice to guide him without help from experience.

Knowledge is marvelous, but wisdom is even better.

I'm not a prophet. I'm not a teacher. I have no degrees. My degree is from the University of Life.

Wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences.

Practical wisdom is only to be learned in the school of experience. Precepts and instruction are useful so far as they go, but, without the discipline of real life, they remain of the nature of theory only.

Men's wisdom increases with reference to what lies before them.

Any 6 year old’s hindsight is better than a President’s foresight.

The thing about wisdom is you store the past in your head.

Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference.

Wise men say, and not without reason, that whosoever wished to foresee the future might consult the past.

Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

I will not give you counsel, saying do this, or do that. For not in doing or contriving, nor in choosing between this course and another, can I avail; but only in knowing what was and is, and in part also what shall be.

Prudence is the knowledge of things to be sought, and those to be shunned.

Wise is what you want to be. Smart is easy compared to wise.

Education is cheap; experience is expensive.

Hindsight alone is not wisdom. And second-guessing is not a strategy.

True knowledge without xperience is food without sustenance

It is a wise man who knows where courage ends and stupidity begins.

My errors will point to thinking men the various roads, and will teach them the great art of treading on the brink of the precipice without falling into it.