Stanislaw Jerzy Lec Quotes

Maxims are the condensed good sense of nations.

Proverbs may not improperly be called the philosophy of the common people.

What is all wisdom save a collection of platitudes?

Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages are preserved by quotations.

The wisdom of nations lies in their proverbs, which are brief and pithy. Collect and learn them; they are notable measures of directions for human life; you have much in little; they save time in speaking; and upon occasion may be the fullest and safest answer.

Old folks are the nation.

Anecdotes and maxims are rich treasures to the man of the world, for he knows how to introduce the former at fit place in conversation.

Proverbs save us the trouble of thinking. What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.

Proverbs are potted wisdom.

Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.

The words of truth are always paradoxical.

Some deemed him wondrous wise, and some believed him mad.

Somewhere in the world there is an epigram for every dilemma.

The opposite of a fact is falsehood, but the opposite of one profound truth may very well be another profound truth.

Proverbs are short sentences drawn from long experience.

The wisdom of the wise and the experience of the ages is preserved into perpetuity by a nation's proverbs, fables, folk sayings and quotations.

I collect axioms, paradoxes, maxims, teaching stories, proverbs, and aphorisms of all sorts, because I love to see complex ideas distilled into a few words.

A proverb is the wisdom of many and the wit of one.

You can either grow old gracefully or begrudgingly. I chose both.

I think people should read fairy tales, because we're hungry for a mythology that will speak to our fears.

A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.

If you want to understand a nation, look at its dancers and listen to its folk songs—don't pay any attention to its politicians.

A country can be judged by the quality of its proverbs.