Baltasar Gracian Quotes

The wisest man is he who does not fancy that he is so at all.

They only are wise who know that they know nothing.

The fool who thinks he is wise is just a fool. The fool who knows he is a fool is wise indeed.

The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself a fool.

A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.

Do not be an arrogant scholar, for scholarship cannot subsist with arrogance.

He bids fair to grow wise who has discovered that he is not so.

A foolish man thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he doesn't.

The wise man is one who knows what he does not know.

A foolish man thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he doesn't," Finn replied absently, still looking down at the book. "That's such a fortune-cookie answer," I said with a laugh, and even he smirked at me.

A fool who recognises his own ignorance is thereby in fact a wise man, but a fool who considers himself wise - that is what one really calls a fool.

I am not young enough to know everything.

To be proud of learning is the greatest ignorance.

The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.

Knowledge is proud that it knows so much; wisdom is humble that it knows no more.

Knowledge fills a large brain; it merely inflates a small one.

If a man knew anything, he would sit in a corner and be modest; but he is such an ignorant peacock, that he goes bustling up and down, and hits on extraordinary discoveries.

The fool who recognizes his foolishness, is a wise man. But the fool who believes himself a wise man, he really is a fool.

To recognize our bias toward error should teach us modesty and reflection, and to forgive it should help us avoid the inhumanity of thinking we ourselves are not as fallible as those who, in any instance, seem most at fault. Science can give us knowledge, but it cannot give us wisdom. Nor can religion, until it puts aside nonsense and distraction and becomes itself again.

The wise know too well their weakness to assume infallibility; and he who knows most knows best how little he knows.

To think to be wise alone is a very great folly.

I am sufficiently proud of my knowing something to be modest about my not knowing all.

The greatest fool is he who thinks he is not one and all others are.

Man is wise only while in search of wisdom; when he imagines he has attained it, he is a fool.

Conceit is a privilege of the ignorant; the wise man is humble because he knows how little he knows.