Wisdom Quotes

Often have I said that wisdom is the bright core of the High Fantasy, a healthy mix of optimism regarding and faith in the human spirit coupled with a solid practicality which recognizes that all is never well with the world; that cruelty and downright evil do exist and do their worst more often then we may like. I call this the Spirit of Tolkien, who of course phrased this philosophy best: “The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”
That being said, though, I thought it might be nice to share some quotes from other sources. Quotes which espouse this wisdom in their own way.

"One of the biggest ways people get caught up with listening is when they hear something they don't agree with. Our gut response is to think, "Well that's wrong" and stop listening. The key to listening is not agreeing with what the other person is saying, but rather understanding why they feel the way they do. Part of listening is going deeper into the understanding of what they're feeling." - Mark Rosewater

"Sing yourself to where the singing comes from." - Seamus Heaney

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love." - Washington Irving

"When you choose the fight you must take the consequences, win or lose." - Bain of Black Rock sept of the Shaarad Aiel

"Duty is heavy as a mountain, death is light as a feather."- Robert Jordan

"You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you’re not good enough because they can’t understand who you are." - Barbara Sher

"The hope is always here, always alive, but only your fierce caring can fan it into a fire to warm the world." - Merriman Lyon

"The only way was forward, whatever lay at the end." - Robert Jordan

"If you're really listening, if you're awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold evermore wonders." - Andrew Harvey

"Do you understand that you must always fail, as long as your goal is not truth, but guidance? That as long as you seek dragons around you, you will never become the dragon within you?" - Sarkhan Vol