Advice

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Quotations about advice.

Sourced

Arranged alphabetically by author.

• A woman seldom asks advice before she has bought her wedding clothes.
  • Joseph Addison, The Spectator (1712).

• He can always pick out the Right Kind for the Other Fellow.
  • George Ade, "The Girl Who Took Notes and Got Wise and Then Fell Down".

• Advice, n. The smallest current coin.
  • Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

• Who cannot give good counsel? 'tis cheap, it cost them nothing.
  • Robert Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621).

• Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most, always like it the least.
  • Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, letter to his son, 29th January 1748.

• Advice is more agreeable in the mouth than in the ear.
  • Mason Cooley (1927-2002), U.S. aphorist. City Aphorisms, Second Selection (1985).

• We must be very careful when we give advice to younger people: sometimes they follow it!
  • Edsger W. Dijkstra, "The Humble Programmer", Communications of the ACM 15 (10), (October 1972): pp. 859–866.

• It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, — always do what you are afraid to do.
  • Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays, First Series (1841).

• Fools need Advice most, but wise Men only are the better for it.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758).

• We may give advice, but we cannot give conduct.
  • Benjamin Franklin, Poor Richard's Almanack (1758).

• Advice is given freely because so much of it is worthless.
  • James Geary, American aphorist and journalist; quote from James Geary website, 2009.

• The advice of the elders to young men is very apt to be as unreal as a list of the hundred best books.
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., "The Path of Law" 10 Harvard Law Review 457 (1897).

• Advice to writers: Sometimes you just have to stop writing. Even before you begin.
  • Stanisław Jerzy Lec, Unkempt Thoughts.

• Tony Bushell had a friend in the Welsh Guards whose father had said to him on his twenty-first birthday: "Three pieces of invaluable advice for you, my boy: nevah hunt south of the Thames, nevah drink port after champagne and nevah have your wife in the morning lest something bettah should turn up during the day."
  • Laurence Olivier, Confessions of an Actor, p. 177.

• Les vieillards aiment à donner de bons préceptes, pour se consoler de n'être plus en état de donner de mauvais exemples.
  • Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer provide bad examples.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678), Maxim 93.

• No enemy is worse than bad advice.
  • Sophocles, Electra.

• Advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien, Gildor Inglorion to Frodo in, The Lord of the Rings, from The Fellowship of the Ring, Book I, Chapter 3 (1954).

• I always pass on good advice. It is the only thing to do with it. It is never of any use to oneself.
  • Oscar Wilde, An Ideal Husband Act I. (1895)

Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 10-11.

• The worst men often give the best advice.
  Our deeds are sometimes better than our thoughts.
  • Philip James Bailey, Festus (1813), scene A Village Feast. Evening, line 917.

• Un fat quelquefois ouvre un avis important.
  • A fop sometimes gives important advice.
  • Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux, L'Art Poétique, IV. 50.

• Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
  To think how mony counsels sweet,
  How mony lengthened, sage advices,
  The husband frae the wife despises.
  • Robert Burns, Tam o' Shanter (1793), line 33.

• And may you better reck the rede,
  Than ever did th' adviser.
  • Robert Burns, Epistle to a Young Friend.

• She had a good opinion of advice,
  Like all who give and eke receive it gratis.
  For which small thanks are still the market price,
  Even where the article at highest rate is.
  • Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XV, Stanza 29.

• Dicen, que el primer consejo
  Ha de ser de la muger.
  • They say that the best counsel is that of woman.
  • Calderon, El Médico de su Honra, I. 2.

• Let no man value at a little price
  A virtuous woman's counsel; her wing'd spirit
  Is feather'd oftentimes with heavenly words.
  • George Chapman, The Gentleman Usher, Act IV, scene 1.

• 'Twas good advice, and meant,
  "My son, be good."
  • George Crabb, The Learned Boy, Volume V, Tale XXI.

• Know when to speake; for many times it brings
  Danger to give the best advice to kings.
  • Robert Herrick, Caution in Councell.

• Quidquid præcipies esto brevis.
  • Whatever advice you give, be short.
  • Horace, Ars Poetica (18 BC), CCCXXXV.

• We give advice, but we do not inspire conduct.
  • François de La Rochefoucauld, Maxim 403.

• In rebus asperis et tenui spe fortissima quæque consilia tutissima sunt.
  • In great straits and when hope is small, the boldest counsels are the safest.
  • Livy, Annales, XXV. 38.

• No adventures mucho tu riqueza
  Por consejo de hombre que ha pobreza.
  • Hazard not your wealth on a poor man's advice.
  • Manuel, Conde Lucanor.

• Remember Lot's wife.
  • Luke, XVII. 32.

• C'est une importune garde, du secret des princes, à qui n'en à que faire.
  • The secret counsels of princes are a troublesome burden to such as have only to execute them.
  • Michel de Montaigne, Essays, III. 1.

• Primo dede mulieris consilio, secundo noli.
  • Take the first advice of a woman and not the second.
  • Gilbertus Cognatus Noxeranus, Sylloge. See J. J. Grynæus, Adagio, p. 130. Langius, Polyanthea Col (1900) same sentiment. (Prends le premier conseil d'une femme et non le second. French for same).

• Consilia qui dant prava cautis hominibus,
  Et perdunt operam et deridentur turpiter.
  • Those who give bad advice to the prudent, both lose their pains and are laughed to scorn.
  • Phædrus, Fabulæ, I. 25.

• Be niggards of advice on no pretense;
  For the worst avarice is that of sense.
  • Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism (1709), line 578.

• In the multitude of counsellors there is safety.
  • Proverbs, XI. 14; XXIV. 6.

• Vom sichern Port lässt sich's gemächlich rathen.
  • One can advise comfortably from a safe port.
  • Friedrich Schiller, Wilhelm Tell, I. 1. 146.

• Bosom up my counsel,
  You'll find it wholesome.
  • William Shakespeare, Henry VIII (1613), Act I, scene 1, line 112.

• When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again.
  • William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act II, scene 4, line 76.

• Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
  Hath often still'd my brawling discontent.
  • William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure (1603), Act IV, scene 1, line 8.

• I pray thee cease thy counsel,
  Which falls into mine ears as profitless
  As water in a sieve.
  • William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, scene 1, line 3.

• Direct not him, whose way himself will choose;
  'Tis breath thou lack'st, and that breath wilt thou lose.
  • William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 1, line 29.

• Many receive advice, only the wise profit by it.
  • Syrus, Maxim 152.

• Che spesso avvien che ne' maggior perigli
  Son più audaci gli ottimi consigli.
  • For when last need to desperation driveth,
    Who dareth most he wisest counsel giveth.
  • Torquato Tasso, Gerusalemme, VI. 6.

• A dead father's counsel, a wise son heedeth.
  • Esais Tegnèr, Fridthjof's Saga, Canto VIII.

• Facile omnes, quum valemus, recta consilia ægrotis damus.
  • We all, when we are well, give good advice to the sick.
  • Terence, Andria, II. 1. 9.

Unsourced

• There is no cramming for the test of life.
  • Madeleine Albright.

• When a man comes to me for advice, I find out the kind of advice he wants, and I give it to him.
  • Josh Billings

• When your mother asks, "Do you want a piece of advice?" it is a mere formality. It doesn't matter if you answer yes or no. You're going to get it anyway.
  • Erma Bombeck

• Some people like my advice so much that they frame it upon the wall instead of using it.
  • Gordon R. Dickson

• Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't.
  • Erica Jong

• He who can take advice is sometimes superior to him who can give it.
  • Karl von Knebel

• When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.
  • Henri Nouwen

• In giving advice seek to help, not to please, your friend.
  • Solon

• The true secret of giving advice is, after you have honestly given it, to be perfectly indifferent whether it is taken or not, and never persist in trying to set people right.
  • Hannah Whitall Smith

• No one wants advice - only corroboration.
  • John Steinbeck

Anonymous

• Advice is generally much better received when the advisor is entertaining.
  • Anonymous from http://advice.com

• Advice after injury is like medicine after death.
  • Danish proverb

• A woman's advice is a poor thing, but he is a fool who does not take it.
  • Spanish proverb

• Never give advice — a wise man won't need it, a fool won't heed it.

• Good advice is better than bad advice, if you know the difference.