Quotations on Advice

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties.

Aesop (620 BC - 560 BC)

It is very difficult to live among people you love and hold back from offering them advice.

Anne Tyler (1941 - ), Celestial Navigation, 1974

People who ask our advice almost never take it. Yet we should never refuse to give it, upon request, for it often helps us to see our own way more clearly.

Brendan Francis

Ask advice only of your equals.

Danish Proverb

Please give me some good advice in your next letter. I promise not to follow it.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892 - 1950), Letters

Write down the advice of him who loves you, though you like it not at present.

English Proverb

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

Erica Jong

Good advice is something a man gives when he is too old to set a bad example.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 - 1680)

I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.

G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Never give advice unless asked.

German Proverb

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

Gordon R. Dickson

There is no human problem which could not be solved if people would simply do as I advise.

Gore Vidal (1925 - )

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, 1902

I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.

Harry S Truman (1884 - 1972)

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on. It is never any use to oneself.

Oscar Wilde (1854 - 1900)

Don't try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night.

Philip K. Dick (1928 - 1982), What The Dead Men Say, 1964

The advice of friends must be received with a judicious reserve; we must not give ourselves up to it and follow it blindly, whether right or wrong.

Pierre Charron

Many receive advice, few profit by it.

Publilius Syrus (~100 BC), Maxims

Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble.

Sidney J. Harris

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

Solon (638 BC - 559 BC)

Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry.

Spanish Proverb