Sage Quotes

In Náhuatl, the language of the Aztec world, one key word for poet was 'tlamatine,' meaning 'the one who knows,' or 'he who knows something.' Poets were considered 'sages of the word,' who meditated on human enigmas and explored the beyond, the realm of the gods.

The torch of doubt and chaos, this is what the sage steers by.

To practice magic is to be a quack; to know magic is to be a sage.

The jester is brother to the sage.

In truth, to attain to interior peace, one must be willing to pass through the contrary to peace. Such is the teaching of the Sages.

Sage is cleansing and sacred.

He that can live alone resembles the brute beast in nothing, the sage in much, and God in everything.

The Sage of Toronto... spent several decades marveling at the numerous freedoms created by a "global village" instantly and effortlessly accessible to all. Villages, unlike towns, have always been ruled by conformism, isolation, petty surveillance, boredom and repetitive malicious gossip about the same families. Which is a precise enough description of the global spectacle's present vulgarity.

Plan for what is difficult while it is easy, do what is great while it is small. The difficult things in this world must be done while they are easy, the greatest things in the world must be done while they are still small. For this reason sages never do what is great, and this is why they achieve greatness.

Yet you must not cling to the words of the old sages either; they, too, may not be right. Even if you believe them, you should be alert so that, in the event that something superior comes along, you may follow that.

The saying goes, 'The sage rests, truly rests and is at ease.' This manifests itself in calmness and detachment, so that worries and distress cannot affect him, nothing unpleasant can disturb him, his Virtue is complete and his spirit is not stirred up.

If the way of the sage is true, that we are all dreaming our world into being, then it has to apply not only to our private, personal universe but to the world at large.

We possess our body by chance and we are already pleased with it. If our physical bodies went through ten thousand transformations without end, how incomparable would this joy be! Therefore the sage roams freely in the realm in which nothing can escape, but all endures.

Libraries offer, for free, the wisdom of the ages--and sages--and, simply put, there's something for everyone inside.

Half my life is in book's written pages. Live and learn from fools and from sages.

In its conception the literature prize belongs to days when a writer could still be thought of as, by virtue of his or her occupation, a sage, someone with no institutional affiliations who could offer an authoritative word on our times as well as on our moral life.

The Sage was asked to define good manners? to which he replied, To bear patiently the rude ones.

To paraphrase several sages: Nobody can think and hit someone at the same time.

The sage is not ill, because he sees illness as illness.

All my days have I grown up among the Sages and I have found naught better for a man than silence.

A sage is skilled at helping people without excluding anyone.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health, Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth The sage in meditation found.

How can you be a sage if you're pretty? You can't get your wizard papers without wrinkles.

Saints and sages are still alive. Great masters are still operating. It is up to you to find where they are.

The pure mind is itself Brahman; it therefore follows that Brahman is not other than the mind of the sage.

He wanted to know how they prayed to God in El Dorado. "We do not pray to him at all," said the reverend sage. "We have nothing to ask of him. He has given us all we want, and we give him thanks continually.

The Portal of God is nonexistence. All things sprang from nonexistence. Existence could not make existence existence. It must have proceeded from nonexistence, and nonexistence and nothing are one. Herein is the abiding place of the sage.

Whatever you believe, that you will be. If you believe yourselves to be sages, sages you will be tomorrow. There is nothing to obstruct you.

To know oneself means, among other things, to know oneself qua non-sage: that is, not as a sophos, but as a philo-sophos, someone on the way toward wisdom.

Because he (the Sage) opposes no one, no one in the world can oppose him.

The sage has the sun and moon by his side and the universe under his arm. He blends everything into a harmonious whole. . . . He blends the disparities of ten thousand years into one complete purity. All things are blended like this and mutually involve each other.

The integral sage, the nondual sage, is here to show us otherwise. Known generally as "Tantric," these sages insist on transcending life by living it. They insist on finding release by engagement, finding nirvana in the midst of samsara, finding total liberation by complete immersion.

The sage acts by doing nothing.

The Sage embraces similarity of understanding and pays no regard to similarity of form. The world in general is attracted by similarity of form, but remains indifferent to similarity of understanding.

Who knows if to live is to be dead, and to be dead, to live? And we really, it may be, are dead; in fact I once heard sages say that we are now dead, and the body is our tomb.

The sage knows without traveling, perceives without looking, completes without acting.

He whom the sages have been seeking in all these places is in our own hearts; the voice that you heard was right, says Vedanta, but the direction you gave to the voice was wrong.

What king has he not taught state, as Talma taught Napoleon? What maiden has not found him finer than her delicacy? What lover has he not outloved? What sage has he not outseen? What gentleman has he not instructed in the rudeness of his behavior?

The sage has no concern for himself, but makes the concerns of others his own.

The sage knows himself, but does not parade. He cherishes himself, but does not praise himself.

The professor, instead of being the "sage on the stage," functions as a "guide on the side."

The sage does not strive to be great. Thereby he can accomplish the great.

If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do is to study the words of those who were.

The sage never strives for greatness, and can therefore accomplish greatness.

We must believe what is good and true about the prophets, that they were sages, that they did understand what proceeded from their mouths, and that they bore prudence on their lips.

The sage never seems to know his own merits, for only by not noticing them can you call others' attention to them.

Non-action is unceasing activity. The sage is characterized by eternal and intense activity. His stillness is like the apparent stillness of a fast rotating gyroscope.

Both scientists and sages have told us what we already know to be true in our hearts: everything is connected. Therefore as we change, the world cannot help but change with us.

He who lives without committing any folly is not so wise as he thinks. [Fr.,
Qui vit sans folie n'est pas si sage qu'il croit.]

Unkind people spread malicious tales, and well-intentioned people also censure; but in either case the tranquil sage remains unconcerned. Nowhere is there to be found a disconcerted sage.