Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains.

Francis Quarles (1592–1644) was a prominent English religious poet and moralist whose writings—especially his emblem books and collections of moral “sentences”—circulated widely in the seventeenth century. The line “Wisdom not only gets, but once got, retains” reflects the period’s strong interest in practical, virtue-centered learning: wisdom was valued not as mere information but as a stable habit of judgment and self-government. Quarles often wrote in compact aphorisms meant for meditation and moral instruction, contrasting durable spiritual goods with fleeting worldly gains. This maxim fits that didactic mode, presenting wisdom as something that both acquires what is truly valuable and, unlike fortune or possessions, is not easily lost once genuinely attained.

The saying distinguishes wisdom from other kinds of “getting.” Many things can be acquired—money, status, even knowledge—yet are vulnerable to chance, theft, or changing circumstances. Quarles suggests that wisdom has a double advantage: it helps one obtain what matters (right ends, sound choices, moral goods), and it also “retains” what it has gained because it becomes part of the person’s character. In other words, wisdom is not merely an external possession but an internalized capacity—habituated discernment—that persists through adversity. The maxim also implies a moral economy: what is gained through wisdom is less likely to be squandered, because wisdom governs desire and prevents self-defeating use of one’s acquisitions.