Wisdom Quotes About Judgment & Living Well

Plato, Laws, Book V, the Athenian Stranger giving an extended civic-ethical exhortation to Cleinias and Megillus; Benjamin Jowett English, Gutenberg #1750. This is dialogue speech, not commentary in Jowett’s introduction. The local dramatic voice is the Athenian Stranger, not Socrates or Plato personally.

Walden, “Economy”; wording lightly normalized from the surrounding sentence.

Proverbs 15:22 in the King James Version.

Rasselas, Chapter XXX; spoken by Imlac during a discussion of history, art and the practical use of studying what earlier people accomplished.

The novel contrasts outside pressure with the value of attending to one’s own judgment.

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman; the passage rejects a separate moral standard built around sex rather than shared human duties.

The Wisdom of Life; Schopenhauer argues that personality has a more direct relation to happiness than property, rank, or external opinion.

Utilitarianism, Chapter II, “What Utilitarianism Is,” Project Gutenberg #11224. Mill’s “human being dissatisfied / pig satisfied” comparison occurs in his argument that some pleasures associated with higher faculties have greater quality, alongside his appeal to dignity and competent judges. It is nineteenth-century normative moral philosophy, not an empirical measure of happiness or human worth.

Out from the Heart, “The Nature and Power of Mind,” represented New York R. F. Fenno & Company edition, Project Gutenberg #74178. Allen contrasts an undisciplined attitude toward experience with a mind disciplined by his moral ideals; the passage is historical conduct-of-life teaching, not medical or therapeutic guidance.

The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, concluding authorial reflection, Project Gutenberg #6593. Fielding explains one of the novel’s stated moral aims: prudence can protect virtue from traps that deceit and indiscretion create.

Dhammapada 82, F. Max Müller translation, Project Gutenberg #2017. The verse belongs to a Buddhist canonical collection and remains a textual source voice rather than a quotation by a modern individual author.

A Room with a View, Chapter XIV, Project Gutenberg #2641. The frozen catalog wording is a clause extract from the narrator’s longer sentence: “Life is easy to chronicle, but bewildering to practice, and we welcome ‘nerves’ or any other shibboleth that will cloak our personal desire.” The passage concerns Lucy Honeychurch’s self-deception in fiction, not modern psychological evidence.

Letter 41 discusses the source of moral greatness and resistance to fortune.

Cato on Old Age, Shuckburgh translation.

A Short History of England, in Chesterton’s discussion of receptiveness and dependence on goods outside oneself.

The Golden Sayings of Epictetus, saying XVII, Hastings Crossley translation.

Knickerbocker's History of New York, Book I, Chapter II, Project Gutenberg #13042. Exact-witness review corrects the inherited broad Book I locator: the “mighty soap-bubbles” sentence closes the chapter’s comic survey of competing cosmogonic theories. It belongs to Diedrich Knickerbocker’s satirical pseudo-history and anti-pedantic rhetoric, not Irving rejecting science as a method.

Tao Teh King, chapter 47, James Legge translation; the sentence belongs to a passage about knowing without compulsive outward searching.

De Officiis, Book I, section 47; Cicero discusses how kindness already received creates a stronger duty of requital.

The Consolation of Philosophy, Book III, Chapter XI, H. R. James translation (Elliot Stock, 1897), printed page 149 in Project Gutenberg #14328. Lady Philosophy reaches ‘All things, then, seek the good’ after arguing that things naturally seek continued existence and unity, and that unity and goodness are the same. This remains late-antique metaphysical/philosophical argument mediated by translation, not an empirical description of every human motive or modern behavioral science.

Plato, Phaedo, approximately 107c, Socrates addressing his companions after the arguments concerning the soul; Benjamin Jowett English, Gutenberg #1658. This sentence is in the dialogue proper, not the translator introduction. Preserve the surrounding conditional argument about the soul and historical belief in immortality.

Modern Painters, Volume III, Part IV, Chapter XVI, “Of Modern Landscape,” section 24, printed page 260, Project Gutenberg #38923. Ruskin calls humility the first test of a truly great man, then immediately distinguishes humility from doubting one’s real power or hesitating about one’s opinions; his point is proportion, not self-denial. This is Victorian art criticism and moral reflection, not modern clinical or psychological evidence about humility.

The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, maxim 14, in Darius Lyman’s 1856 English rendering; maxim order can vary across editions.

Essay “Friendship.”

Laws, Book IX, the Athenian Stranger replying to Cleinias while designing criminal laws for an imagined city. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1750. This is the concluding clause of a longer first-person definition that begins “And now I can define to you clearly”; preserving it as an extract does not make it a remark by Socrates (who is absent from Laws).

Symposium, Socrates recounting Diotima’s teaching, Benjamin Jowett translation, Project Gutenberg #1600. The represented wording belongs to Diotima’s account of Love as intermediate between the wise and the ignorant.

Enchiridion, section XIII, George Long translation; the advice warns against pursuing both inner discipline and external reputation.

Theaetetus, around Stephanus 201a–c, Socrates explaining his law-court counterexample while speaking with Theaetetus. Benjamin Jowett English translation, Project Gutenberg #1726. The full sentence is spoken by Socrates in the dramatic dialogue, not from Jowett’s prefatory commentary; no claim is made about modern evidence law.

Phaedrus, around Stephanus 249d–e, Socrates’s palinode and description of inspired recollection of true beauty. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1636. This is Socrates speaking in Plato’s dialogue; the claim comes after his charioteer-and-soul allegory and should not be extracted as a universal account of romance.

Robinson Crusoe, represented by Project Gutenberg #38705. Crusoe says this while reflecting on what he interprets as secret intimations of Providence; the sentence is fictional first-person religious reflection, not evidence for supernatural guidance.

Poem “If—,” opening lines.

Dhammapada 157, Chapter XII “Self,” in Max Müller’s translation; the verse explicitly joins self-regard with watchfulness and ethical discipline.

Plato, The Republic, Book I, around 344e, Socrates in dialogue with Thrasymachus. Wording verified in Benjamin Jowett, third edition (1888), transcribed in Gutenberg #55201. This is dialogue speech following Thrasymachus’s defence of injustice, not the translator’s prefatory analysis. Edition-specific wording must be preserved.

Letter 41 argues that the divine and the noble life are encountered within a person’s moral character.

Rasselas, Chapter XVI; spoken by Imlac while comparing European life with the travelers’ expectations of happiness.

Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 13, section 5, Richard M. Gummere translation.

Meditations, Book IV, section 48 in George Long’s public-domain translation, Project Gutenberg #6920/#15877 tradition. The olive image follows a reflection on the shortness of life and frames gratitude as part of accepting mortality rather than denying loss.

Self-Help, Chapter IX, “Men of Business,” Project Gutenberg #935. The sentence appears in Smiles’s discussion of method, punctuality and the economical use of time, contrasting losses that may be repaired with time once spent, which cannot be recovered.

Phaedrus, around Stephanus 245b–c, in Socrates’s second speech (palinode) to Phaedrus following his retraction of the anti-lover argument. Benjamin Jowett English, Project Gutenberg #1636; the complete sentence occurs in the dramatic speech after examples of prophetic, religious and poetic inspiration. The divine origin of love is a claim of this ancient philosophical argument, not independently established evidence.

Job 12:7, King James Version; Job appeals to creatures and the earth as witnesses within his argument about divine power and human understanding.