A Quote by Epictetus

Common and vulgar people ascribe all ills that they feel to others; people of little wisdom ascribe to themselves; people of much wisdom, to no one.

Epictetus

Quote Topics

Ascribe Common Feel Ills Little Much Others People Themselves Vulgar Wisdom

Quote Author

Epictetus
Greek - Philosopher
50 - 138

There is as much wisdom in soliciting good counsel as in giving it. The most sensible people are not reluctant to consider the feelings of other people; and to know how to submit to the wise guidance of others is a kind of wisdom in itself.

Madeleine de Souvre, marquise de Sable

One little human truth is that opinionated people don't hold much with other people's opinions, and it is a great pleasure to some of them to be able to ascribe incurable defects, such as belonging to a certain sex; or base motives, or lack of understanding, to anyone whose views they disagree with.

Katherine Anne Porter

Country people tend to consider that they have a corner on righteousness and to distrust most manifestations of cleverness, while people in the city are leery of righteousness but ascribe to themselves all manner of cleverness.

Edward Hoagland

We want to ascribe a kind of tragic grimness to people, but people are funny.

Luis Alberto Urrea

Mature people transmit to young people a certain wisdom that comes from maturity, but young people are close to a more intuitive wisdom, and they can give that back to older people who have lost it to their maturation.

Eugene Green

Those people who have got wisdom are very lucky people, but wisdom comes from no source but your own understanding of life. When a person starts thinking, "Why am I doing such and such thing ? What is the effect of my doing ? What is the result of my behaviour ? Is it good for me or bad for me ? " , then wisdom comes.

Nirmala Srivastava

When it seems that God shows us the faults of others, keep on the safer side-it may be that your judgment is false. On your lips let silence abide. And any vice that you may ascribe to others, ascribe at once to them and yourself, in true humility. If that vice really exists in a person, he will correct himself better, seeing himself so gently understood, and will say of his own accord the thing that you would have said to him.

St. Catherine of Siena

People want power but not wisdom. Power without wisdom is a very dangerous thing. Better to have wisdom first.

Frederick Lenz

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence, and deem them like the ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human, and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

Thomas Jefferson

Some men look at constitutions with sanctimonious reverence and deem them like the Ark of the Covenant, too sacred to be touched. They ascribe to men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human and suppose what they did to be beyond amendment.

Edmund Morgan

The kinds of people we need in government are precisely the kinds of people who are most reluctant to go into government -- people who understand the inherent dangers of power and feel a distaste for using it, but who may do so for a few years as a civic duty. The worst kind of people to have in government are those who see it as a golden opportunity to impose their own superior wisdom and virtue on others.

Thomas Sowell

I don't know why it is that the religious never ascribe common sense to God.

W. Somerset Maugham

Inner Nature, when relied on, cannot be fooled. But many people do not look at it or listen to it, and consequently do not understand themselves very much. Having little understanding of themselves, they have little respect for themselves, and are therefore easily influenced by others.

Benjamin Hoff

I suppose that people, using themselves and each other so much by words, are at least consistent in attributing wisdom to a still tongue.

William Faulkner

I have found that great people do have in common. . .an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have gerat determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.