What does wisdom look like?

Can we recognize it when someone gives us the best advice we might ever get... or will we unknowingly dismiss it? The generally accepted image of wisdom is the elderly, or the owl. Is the owl wise, or does he just look like he would be? Was Gandhi wise, or just a loving, non-violent soul? I've heard bits of incredible wisdom come from just about everyone I know. It's there, if you listen.

One of the best bits of advice ever given to me was from a dear friend, ten years my elder. It was said in passing, but I heard it. I was only nineteen years old, but I recognized it for what it was, and I followed it. I believe it changed my life.

"Read everything you get your hands on."

But, how do we know when we've just been given a bit of wisdom? Can we recognize good advice when it's given to us? Not always. Sometimes we're too young. Sometimes we just fail to listen, or are incapable of listening. Delivery plays an important part, too. Is everything an elder tells you wise? Of course not. Growing old does not automatically make one smart, but it does warrant a certain degree of respect. We Americans, all too often, have forgotten that simple rule.

I believe wisdom comes mostly from experience: Been there, done that, know better. But I've heard profound statements come from individuals who are far from elderly. So, go figure...

Below are some of my favorite quotes and bits of advice. There are many more which are not included here. To quote them all would take a series of hubs bigger than I want to do, but I will be adding to this hub, as I come across bits of wisdom... here and there.

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I don't want to be liked, particularly. I would like to be understood. ---Bette Davis

Learn by other's mistakes because you do not live long enough to make them all yourself ---Anonymous

A sense of humor... is needed armor. Joy in one's heart and some laughter on one's lips is a sign that the person down deep has a pretty good grasp of life. ---Hugh Sidey

If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies. ---Moshe Dayan (1915-1981)

A man never discloses his own character so clearly as when he describes another's. ---Jean Paul Richter

A kid does not respect an adult who coddles to him, but is endlessly fascinated by a grown-up going about daily life. ---Men's Health Magazine

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all. ---Oscar Wilde

Wake me up inside. Call my name and save me from the dark. Bid my blood to run, before I come undone. Save me from the nothing I've become. ---excerpt from "Bring Me Back to Life" - Evanescence

When a friend speaks to me, whatever he says is interesting. ---Jean Renoir, French movie director

Most of us go through life with blinders on, seeing only what we are meant to see. But you, madam, have had the rare opportunity to see life from a completely different perspective. ---Roddy McDowall, "Overboard"

How come things that happen to stupid people keep happening to me? ---Homer Simpson

Live your life in such a manner that your friends will eagerly defend you, but try to make sure they never have to. ---"Life's Little Instruction Book"

I told someone one time about skeletons in the closet; mine still have meat on them. ---Denzel Washington

Good things - in life - take a long time ---excerpt from "Waiting So Long" -Chicago

Seek out, and learn, everything you can find. ---Advice given to me when I was a teenager. Name, unfortunately, forgotten

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. ---Eleanor Roosevelt

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. ---Martin Luther King, Jr.

Common sense is the knack of seeing things as they are, and doing things as they ought to be done. ---Harriet Beecher Stowe

I'll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure. ---Mae West

When choosing between two evils, I always like to try the one I've never tried before. ---Mae West

You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. ---Naquib Mahfouz

The man who said in 1899: "Everything that can be invented has been invented" - technically, wasn't he right at the time? ---John Alejandro King

Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of children. ---William Makepeace Thackeray

In the true Literary Man there is thus, acknowledged or not by the world, a sacredness: he is the light of the world; the world's priest; - guiding it, like a sacred Pillar of Fire, in its dark pilgrimage through the waste of Time. ---Thomas Carlyle

He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. ---Albert Einstein

If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere. ---Frank A. Clark

One likes to believe in the freedom of music, but glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity. ---Neal Peart, RUSH, "The Spirit of Radio"

If a great thing can be done, it can be done easily, but this ease is like the ease of a tree blossoming after long years of gathering strength. ---John Ruskin

All generalizations are false, including this one. ---Mark Twain

It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so. ---Mark Twain

Children, you must remember something. A man without ambition is dead. A man with ambition but no love is dead. A man with ambition and love for his blessings here on Earth is ever so alive. ---Pearl Bailey

Ignorance of certain subjects is a great part of wisdom. ---Hugo De Groot

The thing that makes you uncomfortable as a young person ... may be the very thing which enables you to stand out as an adult. ---Kiefer Sutherland

It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a ‘dismal science.’ But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance. --- Murray N. Rothbard

If you live to be one hundred, you've got it made. Very few people die past that age. ---George Burns

Judging a president by his first 14 Mondays has been a time-honered tradition of assessing the true metal of the the man ever since I pulled it out of my ass fifteen seconds ago.   ---Stephen Colbert, "The Colbert Report"

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. ---Abraham Lincoln

If you wanna be one with nature, that's great, but be prepared for nature when they show up. ---Discovery Channel's "Verminators"

My own opinion is that belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence. The more certitude one assumes, the less there is to think about, and a person sure of everything would never have need to think of anything and might be considered clinically dead under current medical standards, where the absence of brain activity is taken to mean that life has ended. ---Robert Anton Wilson, "Cosmic Trigger" Vol.1

Next to excellence is the appreciation of it. ---William Makepeace Thackeray

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom. ---Proverb

May the Lord welcome you to Heaven, at least an hour before the Devil knows you're dead. ---Irish toast to the deceased

The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. ---"Moulin Rouge"

The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you. ---Bette Midler

I didn't recognize you. I've changed a lot. ---Oscar Wilde

It is no weakness for the wisest man to learn when he is wrong. ---Sophocles

Women are never done with it, son. Anything wrong you do, they sit on it for twenty five years, like an egg. And then it hatches - on Superbowl Sunday. ---Red Foreman, "That 70's Show"

The key to a woman's heart is an unexpected gift at an unexpected time. ---"Finding Forrester"

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. ---Groucho Marx

Marriage is a wonderful institution... if, of course, you like living in an institution. ---Groucho Marx

I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it. ---Groucho Marx

Knowing what you cannot do is more important than knowing what you can do. In fact, that's good taste. ---Lucille Ball

Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless. ---Mother Teresa

The only good thing to ever come out of religion was the music. ---George Carlin

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. ---Albert Einstein

You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ---Mahatma Gandhi

Nobility isn't a birth right. It is defined by our actions. ---Kevin Costner, "Robin Hood - Prince of Thieves"

Wisdom is what you see in yourself when you look in the mirror after a really hard period in your life. ---Stephhicks68, HubPages writer(Thank you Steph!)

Without the possibility of pain, there can be no joy... no real love. --- Dr. Sweet, "Bones"

One can be very happy without demanding that others agree with them. ---Goethe

Pizza is like sex. Even when it's bad ...it's still pretty good. ---Unknown genius

The brain is no stronger than its weakest think. ---Unknown

Do snail-mail deliverers use email? ---Me

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur (whatever is said in Latin seems profound).

The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. ---Ezra Pound, poet (1885-1972)

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.' ---President Barack Obama

We grow great by dreams. All big men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter's evening. Some of us let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true. ---Woodrow Wilson

Finding new, and preferably disgusting, ways to degrade a friend's mother was always held in high regard. ---Stephen King, "Stand By Me"

Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons. ---Woody Allen

The world is what you make it. If it doesn't fit, make alterations. ---Linda Hunt, "Silverado"

It was the most beautiful sound in the world. Part mathematics and part... euphoria. I felt certain that whatever this was, was a gift to the world. Meant to fill all that hurt it... with the flood of emotion. It struck me then that not everyone could hear this miracle. The sound increased my sorrow for those who could not hear it. ---"Kyle XY"

I remember an old guitar player, Eldon Shamblin, told me, "When you get sex off your mind, you can go ahead and learn something." ---Merle Haggard

When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. ---Eric Hoffer

Let the truth of love be lighted, let the love of truth shine clear. Sensibility ... Armed with sense and liberty. With the heart and mind united in a single ... perfect ... sphere. ---Neal Peart, RUSH, "Hemispheres"

May we never let the things we can't have, or don't have, or shouldn't have, spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have. As we value our happiness let us not forget it, for one of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot or should not have. ---Richard L. Evans

There's something amazing about the way a dog who loves you looks up at you. I don't know the words to properly do it justice ... but it's profoundly moving. ---American Musician/Writer, Ron McIntyre

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. --- Nelson Mandela, "A Long Walk to Freedom"