Wisdom begins at the end.

 

Wisdom begins at the end.
--
quoting from John Webster's 1613 play The Duchess of Malfi
--
Could it be that someone way back attributed it to merely "Webster" and then someone else assumed that this "Webster" is Daniel Webster instead of the correct John Webster, the English playwright.

 

Daniel Webster

» Daniel Webster - all quotes »

Similar quotes

 

A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.

 

Herb Caen

 

It is not unreasonable to assume that the works of God, their existence and preceding non-existence, are the result of His wisdom, but we are unable to understand many of the ways of His Wisdom in His works. On this principle the whole Law of Moses is based; it begins with this principle: "And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. i. 31); and it ends with this principle: "The Rock, perfect is His work" (Deut. xxxii. 4). Note it.

 

Maimonides

 

As to the viciousness of the philosophers, the meaning of this complaint is succinctly expressed in the charge that the philosophers do not “hold the gods the city holds.” And this accusation is most true. The quest for wisdom begins in doubt of the conventional wisdom about the highest things. The most cherished beliefs of the community, the collective hopes and fears, are centered on its gods. The unpardonable thing is to be beyond these hopes and fears, beyond the awe and shame the gods impose.

 

Allan Bloom

 

Religion ends and philosophy begins, just as alchemy ends and chemistry begins and astrology ends, and astronomy begins.

 

Christopher Hitchens

 

They have founded the whole structure of their happiness on these very illusions, which ought to be combated and dissipated by the light of knowledge, and they would think they were paying too dearly for a truth which begins by robbing them of all that has value in their sight. It would be necessary that they should be already sages to love wisdom: a truth that was felt at once by him to whom philosophy owes its name.

 

Friedrich von Schiller