A Quote by William Whitelaw

It is never wise to try to appear to be more clever than you are. It is sometimes wise to appear slightly less so.

William Whitelaw

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Appear Clever Less More Never Slightly Sometimes Than Try Wise

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William Whitelaw
British - Politician
June 28, 1918 - July 1, 1999

Appearances to the mind are of four kinds. Things either are what they appear to be; or they neither are, nor appear to be; or they are, and do not appear to be; or they are not, and yet appear to be. Rightly to aim in all these cases is the wise man's task.

Epictetus

I am really sorry to see my countrymen trouble themselves about politics. If men were wise, the most arbitrary princes could not hurt them. If they are not wise, the freest government is compelled to be a tyranny. Princes appear to me to be fools. Houses of Commons and Houses of Lords appear to me to be fools; they seem to me to be something else besides human life.

William Blake

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

Quintilian

It is not always wise to appear singular.

Taylor Caldwell

Always be more than you appear and never appear to be more than you are.

Angela Merkel

Wise Man: One who sees the storm coming before the clouds appear.

Elbert Hubbard

Cato used to assert that wise men profited more by fools than fools by wise men; for that wise men avoided the faults of fools, but that fools would not imitate the good examples of wise men.

Plutarch

I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.

Montesquieu

Numberless arts appear foolish whose secret motives are most wise and weighty.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Be wise, because the world needs more wisdom. And if you cannot be wise, pretend to be someone who is wise, and then just behave like they would.

Neil Gaiman

Human beings make a strange fauna and flora. From a distance they appear negligible; close up they are apt to appear ugly and malicious. More than anything they need to be surrounded with sufficient space?space even more than time.

Henry Miller

I was born wise. Street-wise, people-wise, self-wise. This wisdom was my birthright.

Sophia Loren

Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise.

Cato the Elder

I would not say that old men grow wise, for men never grow wise; and many old men retain a very attractive childishness and cheerful innocence. Elderly people are often much more romantic than younger people, and sometimes even more adventurous, having begun to realize how many things they do not know.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

Nicolas Chamfort

Most men appear never to have considered what a house is, and are actually though needlessly poor all their lives because they think that they must have such a one as their neighbors have. ... Shall we always study to obtain more, and not sometimes be content with less?

Henry David Thoreau

A Quote by William Whitelaw

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