Jacques Lacan Quotes

Wisdom is knowing when you can't be wise.

Sometimes, surely, truth is closer to imagination or to intelligence, to love than to fact? To be accurate is not to be right.

The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.

Common sense is the most fairly distributed thing in the world, for each one thinks he is so well-endowed with it that even those who are hardest to satisfy in all other matters are not in the habit of desiring more of it than they already have.

All truth, in the long run, is only common sense clarified.

Jesters do often prove prophets.

Common sense is the genius of humanity.

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

Common Sense is that which judges the things given to it by other senses.

Wisdom comes from within. Knowledge is acquired and can sometimes put a screen on your wisdom.

A man's mind is wont to tell him more than seven watchmen sitting in a tower.

Not when truth is dirty, but when it is shallow, does the enlightened man dislike to wade into its waters.

Judgment is more than skill. It sets forth on intellectual seas beyond the shores of hard indisputable factual information.

I've been blessed with a good head on my shoulders and quite a good ability of discernment. I can see through people.

Facts are many, but the truth is one.

I think there's a knowingness in my face.

It takes little talent to see what lies under one's nose, a good deal to know in what direction to point that organ.

When people show you who they are, believe them. I carry that with me a lot. It has served me well.

Truth is a demure lady, much too ladylike to knock you on your head and drag you to her cave. She is there, but people must want her, and seek her out.

Seeing reality for what it is is what we call discernment. The work of discernment is very hard.

The wisdom of the wise is an uncommon degree of common sense.

There is a wisdom of the head, and a wisdom of the heart.

When we examine the opinions of men, we find that nothing is more uncommon than common sense; or, in other words, they lack judgment to discover plain truths or to reject absurdities and palpable contradictions.

The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less.

Every human being has, like Socrates, an attendant spirit; and wise are they who obey its signals. If it does not always tell us what to do, it always cautions us what not to do.