Advice - Quotes

A good scare is worth more to a man than good advice. - Ed Howe

Advice after mischief is like medicine after death. - Danish Proverb

Advice from your friends is like the weather, some of it is good; some of it is bad. - Proverb

Advice is a peculiar commodity. Those who have the capacity to give good advice generally have too much sense to waste their time trying to get rid of it. - William Henry McMasters

Advice is like a stranger – if welcome, he stays the night; if not welcome, he returns home that day. - African Proverb

Advice is like bogus money, everybody wants to pass it on ye; nobody wants to take it. - Charles Clark Munn 

Advice is like castor oil, easy enough to give but dreadful uneasy to take. - Josh Billings

Advice is like cooking – you should try it before you feed it to others. - Croft M. Pentz

Advice is like mushrooms. The wrong kind can prove fatal. - E. C. McKenzie

Advice is like snow – the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper in sinks into the mind. - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Advice is like straw thrown on a fire. - Isaiah 47:14

Advice is not often asked of seeming idlers: it is most common to interrupt the busy by such requests; and naturally enough, since those who attend most carefully to their own concerns, are generally thought best qualified, by experience, to judge for others. - Unknown 

Advice is only rarely requested with the intention of being followed. Sometimes, it is requested in order to flatter the adviser. Sometimes, it is requested because it is hoped that the advice given will tell a great deal about the adviser. Sometimes, the request is an excuse for spending time with the adviser, because his or her room is nicer … Occasionally, the request for advice is an introductory sentence, a polite preface to a lengthy statement of the requester's opinion. Asking for advice can also be a way of apologizing for numerous occasions when advice or orders have not been followed in the past. - Norman Sartorius 

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least. - Lord Chesterfield Stanhope

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

All the advice in the whole will never help you until you help yourself. - Fred Van Amburgh

Another problem with advice is that the advisor seldom understands the full implications of the problem. When people share their concerns with us, they often display only the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ The advisor is unaware of the complexities, feelings, and the many other factors that lie hidden beneath the surface. - Robert Bolton

Ask advice only of your equals. - Danish Proverb

Asking for advice is an act of humility … The act alone says, ‘I need you.’ The decision maker and the adviser are pushed into a closer relationship. - Dennis Bakke

Before you give advice, that is to say advice which you have not been asked to give, it is well to put to yourself two questions – namely, what is your motive for giving it, and what is it likely to be worth? If these questions were always asked, and honestly answered, there would be less advice given. - John William Mackail

Best advice in two lines… Silence is the best answer for all questions. Smiling is the best reaction in all situations. - Unknown

Don’t follow any advice, no matter how good, until you feel as deeply in your spirit as you think in your mind that the counsel is wise. - Dr. David Seabury

Every man, however wise, needs the advice of some sagacious friend in the affairs of life. - Titus Maccius Plautus

Expert advice is a great comfort, even when it is wrong. - Unknown

Follow the advice of people and fail, and they have nothing for you but contempt. Pay no attention to them and succeed, and they will follow in your footsteps. - George H. Knox 

Give advice; if people don’t listen let adversity teach them. - Ethiopian Proverb 

Giving advice is sometimes only showing our wisdom at the expense of others. - Anthony Shaftesbury

Giving free advice is a sad waste of effort. In the first place, no man will act upon it unless he is already inclined to do so. Secondly, when a man lays his case before you, the idea that he is asking your advice is a polite fabrication. He merely is suggesting that he is doing so, while as a fact his real object is to acquaint you with his personal activity. He wants to talk to somebody, being a natural gossip or gadder, and he plays upon your propensity for ‘giving advice’ in order to get an audience. - William Henry McMasters

Good advice is like a proverb: the meaning depends on the interpretation. - Rebecca L. Walkowitz

Good advice is rarer than rubies. - Salman Rushdie 

Good advice usually works best when preceded by a bad scare. - Al Batt

Good advice is everywhere, but only those people with an open heart will benefit from it. - Unknown

Good advice offering requires knowing a person very, very well. So well, in fact, that you may know more about them than they know about themselves in certain situations. Then, good advice is loving and given out of love. It is never to control or manipulate. Then, it is giving information; just giving, not enforcing, information. And lastly and most importantly, after advice is given, the outcome is let go of completely, trusting that the other person will take it, leave it, or ponder it. - Anne Wilson Schaef

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

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

I only do what my gut tells me to. I think it’s smart to listen to other people’s advice, but at the end of the day, you’re the only one who can tell you what’s right for you. - Jennifer Lopez

I’ll give you the same advice I give my children: Never take advice from anybody. - Robert Altma

If someone gives you advice, it is in his own interest. - Tunisian Proverb

If you can tell the difference between good advice and bad advice, you do not need advice. - Unknown

If you listen too much to advice, you may wind up making other people’s mistakes. - Croft M. Pentz

In a crisis, give help first and then advice. - Aesop 

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

It is a weak thing to tell half your story, and then ask your friend's advice – a still weaker thing to take it. - Arthur Helps 

It is a disingenuous thing to ask for advice, when you mean assistance. - Arthur Helps

It is always easier to give advice than to follow it. That does not mean people should not give advice. Drawing a plan for making a plane is always easier than making a plane. But you still need the drawing first. - Unknown

It is an easy thing for one whose foot is on the outside of calamity to give advice and to rebuke the sufferer. - Aeschylus

It is as easy to give advice to yourself as to others, and as useless. - Austin O’Malley

It is easy to give advice from a port of safety. - Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted. - Aeschylus

It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously. - Logan Pearsall Smith

It’s always good to be careful when you give advice, because someone might take it. - Croft M. Pentz

Let men be wise by instinct if they can, but when this fails be wise by good advice. - Sophocles 

Man is never less sincere than when he asks, or offers, advice. When he asks it, he seems to defer to the wisdom of his friend, but really he seeks approval of his own opinion, and to make his friend responsible with him for his actions. When he offers advice, he seems to repay the confidence of his inquirer with disinterested zeal, while really seeking to bolster his own advantage or reputation. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Many receive advice, few profit by it. - Publilius Syrus

Most of us ask for advice when we know the answer but we want a different one. - Ivern Ball

Most people when they come to you for advice, come to have their own opinions strengthened, not corrected. - Josh Billings

Most people who ask for advice from others have already resolved to act as it pleases them. - Kahlil Gibran

My advice to other disabled people would be, concentrate on things your disability doesn’t prevent you doing well, and don’t regret the things it interferes with. Don’t be disabled in spirit as well as physically. - Stephen Hawking

Never advise anyone to go to war or to marry. - Spanish Proverb

Never ask for advice and then shoot the person giving it. - Unknown

Never take the advice of someone who has not had your kind of trouble. - Sidney J. Harri

Never trust the advice of a man in difficulties. - Aesop

No one can give you better advice than yourself. - Cicero

No one wants advice – only corroboration. - John Steinbeck

Nothing is given so willingly as advice. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Nothing is less sincere than the manner of asking and giving advice. He who asks it seems to have a respectful deference for the opinion of his friend; though he only aims at making him approve his own, and be responsible for his conduct. And he who gives it, repays the confidence reposed in him by a seemingly disinterested zeal; though he seldom means anything by the advice he gives but his own interest or reputation. - Francois de la Rochefoucauld

People don’t always need advice. Sometimes all they really need is a hand to hold, an ear to listen, and a heart to understand them. - Unknown

Seek advice but use your own common sense. - Yiddish Proverb

Teeth placed before the tongue give good advice. - Italian Proverb

The brain may take advice, but not the heart. - Truman Capote

The character of giving advice often makes us accountable for the conduct of those we advise. - Norman MacDonald 

The desire to give advice is itself a symptom of disapproval; and further, it is usually the result of a desire to express that disapproval. And we are most moved to give advice to those for whom our affection and regard may be taken for granted, but to whom we would rather express our disapproval. We cannot go to them and say that we disapprove of them. That would not be affectionate, and might lead to reprisals. But we can give them advice in which the disapproval is implied and which yet seems innocently helpful. - John William Mackail

The only thing one can do with good advice is to pass it on. It is never of any use to oneself. - Oscar Wilde

The people sensible enough to give good advice are usually sensible enough to give none. - Eden Phillpotts

The reason why we often get poor advice is that it’s hard to find a person who always has our best interest at heart, isn’t envious in any way, and at no level thinks he knows what’s best for you. - David Lieberman

The trouble with advice is that it's usually something you don’t want to hear. - Charles de Lint

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

The wisest man is he who does not require advice. - Edward Counsel

There are as many forms of advice as there are colours of the rainbow. Remember that good advice can come from bad people and bad advice from good people. The important thing about advice is that it is simply that. Advice. - Al Franken

There are two things which a man should scrupulously avoid: giving advice that he would not follow, and asking advice when he is determined to pursue his own opinion. - Norman MacDonald 

There is nothing which we receive with so much reluctance as advice. - Joseph Addison

To accept good advice is but to increase one’s own ability. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To ask advice is in nine cases out of ten to tout for flattery. - John Churton Collins 

To offer a man unsolicited advice is to presume that he doesn't know what to do or that he can't do it on his own. - John Gray

To profit from good advice requires more wisdom than to give it. - John Churton Collins

We advise others better than ourselves. - Norman MacDonald 

We all admire the wisdom of people who come to us for advice. - Arthur Helps

We do not attend to the advice of the sage and experienced because we think they are old, forgetting that they once were young and placed in the same situations as ourselves. - William Hazlitt 

We give advice by the bucket, but take it by the grain. - Tom Stoppard

We give advice, but we cannot give the wisdom to profit by it. - Duc de La Rochefoucauld

We hate to have some people give us advice because we know how badly they need it themselves. - Unknown

We sometimes give ourselves admirable advice, but we are incapable of taking it. - Unknown

What makes a fool is an inability to take even his own good advice. - William Faulkner 

What’s wrong with advice? Advice is often a basic insult to the intelligence of the other person. It implies a lack of confidence in the capacity of the person with the problem to understand and cope with his or her own difficulties. As Norman Kagan puts it, “In essence, we implicitly say to someone, ‘You have been making a “big deal” out of a problem whose solution is immediately apparent to me – how stupid you are!’” - Robert Bolton

Whatever advice you give, be brief. - Horatius

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 we are well, we all have good advice for those who are ill. - Seneca

When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice. - Joseph Louis LaGrange

Wise men don’t need advice. Fools won’t take it. - Benjamin Franklin

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

You know how advice is. You only want it if it agrees with what you wanted to do anyway. - John Steinbeck