QUOTATION: Wisdom

In the general sense of the term wisdom means a delectable knowledge, a taste for God and his truth. There are several kinds of wisdom. First, true and false wisdom. True wisdom is a taste for truth without falsehood or deception. False wisdom is a taste for falsehood disguised as truth. This false wisdom is the wisdom or the prudence of the world, which the Holy Spirit divides into three classes: earthly, sensual, and diabolical. True wisdom may be divided into natural and supernatural wisdom. Natural wisdom is the knowledge, in an outstanding degree, of natural things in their principles. Supernatural wisdom is knowledge of supernatural and divine things in their origin. This supernatural wisdom is divided into substantial or uncreated Wisdom, and accidental or created wisdom. Accidental or created wisdom is the communication that uncreated Wisdom makes of himself to mankind. In other words, it is the gift of wisdom. Substantial or uncreated Wisdom is the Son of God, the second person of the most Blessed Trinity. In other words, it is eternal Wisdom in eternity or Jesus Christ in time.

--St. Louis de Montfort, The Love of Eternal Wisdom

QUOTATION: Wisdom

Divine Wisdom speaks not to the world, but to her own children.

--Blessed John Henry Newman

QUOTATION: Fear of the Lord

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom; till you see Him to be a consuming fire, and approach Him with reverence and godly fear, as being sinners, you are not even in sight of the strait gate.

--Blessed John Henry Newman, "The Religion of the Day", Parochial and Plain Sermons

QUOTATION: Learning Biblical Wisdom

The wisdom of the Scriptures is learned rather by prayer than by study.

--St. Philip Neri

QUOTATION: Tranquility and Wisdom

Thinking is associated rather with repose. This Aristotle himself teaches in Book VII of the Physics, where he says that if a man is to become wise he must first achieve an inward tranquility; which is why the young and the restless are not, as a rule, wise. Wisdom and prudence are acquired, says Aristotle, by one who is content to sit down and be quiet.

--St. Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima, I, lect. VIII, 125.

QUOTATION: Wisdom

Wisdom enters through love, silence, and mortification. It is great wisdom to know how to be silent and to look at neither the remarks, nor the deeds, nor the lives of others.

--St. John of the Cross

QUOTATION: Wisdom

True wisdom is not to be found in the things of this world nor in the souls of those who live in comfort. He has fixed his abode in the Cross so firmly that you will not find him anywhere in this world save in the Cross. He has so truly incorporated and united himself with the Cross that in all truth we can say: Wisdom is the Cross, and the Cross is Wisdom.

--St. Louis de Montfort.

QUOTATION: Wisdom

Of all the signs of a man’s knowledge and wisdom, none is proof of greater wisdom than that he does not cling to his own opinion…. For those who cling to their own judgement so as to mistrust others and trust in themselves alone invariably prove themselves fools and judged as such..

--St. Thomas Aquinas

QUOTATION: Wisdom

Wisdom precedes, religion follows; for the knowledge of God comes first, His worship is the result of this knowledge.

--Lactantius, Divine Institutes, 4:4