wisdom & folly31 quotes

“Every binary split creates a temptation to merely reverse its terms, to elevate what has been devalued and denigrate what has been overvalued.”

“Never hand emotional control to people who don’t love you.”

“In the matter of reforming things, as distinct from deforming them, there is one plain and simple principle; a principle which will probably be called a paradox. There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.”

Γνῶθι σεαυτόν.

“Know thyself.”

“Every truly moral development requires such a passing through experiences, regrets, and sorrows. Only after a long voyage can the conscience recognize evil as such.”

“The absolute certitude with which we assign good and evil indicates just how much a true pluralism of judgements and attitudes, a sense of nuance, a civilized hesitation before the difficult judgements of moral practice, are deserting us.”

“When the Everlasting asked King Solomon what he wished to receive as a reward for his good behavior, Solomon replied, discernment. In granting Solomon discernment, God did not actually give him anything, for Solomon’s very request demonstrated that he possessed it already. Solomon thereby revealed that he has perceived the core of human weakness: we must judge here on earth, yet only God can judge, and God is not on earth—a terrible paradox.”

“People tell you who they are, but we ignore it, because we want them to be who we want them to be.”

“Knowledge grows, but wisdom, though it can improve with years, does not progress with centuries. I cannot instruct Solomon.”

“Other studies may tell us how we might behave, or how we should behave; history tells us how we have behaved for six thousand years. One who knows that record is in large measure protected in advance against the delusions and disillusionments of his times. He has learned the limitations of human nature, and bears with equanimity the faults of his neighbors and the imperfections of states. He shares hopefully in the reforming enterprises of his age and people; but his heart does not break, nor his faith in life fade out, when he perceives how modest are the results, and how persistently man remains what he has been for sixty centuries, perhaps for a thousand generations.”

“Þá nam ek frævask

ok fróðr vera

ok vaxa ok vel hafask

orð mér af orði

orðs leitaði

verk mér af verki

verks leitaði.

Then began I to thrive,

and wisdom to get,

I grew and well I was;

Each word led me on to another word,

Each deed to another deed.”

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — ‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.’ — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.”

“Finish every day and be done with it. For manners and for wise living it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. To-morrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely, and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.”

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”

“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.”

“I never worried about making a living,” he said, “but I’ve done thinking about making a life. It’s hard to know the difference sometimes, and it must be getting harder, judging by all them that don’t know the difference now.”

“If a man can keep alert and imaginative, an error is a possibility, a chance at something new; to him, wandering and wondering are part of the same process, and he is most mistaken, most in error, whenever he quits exploring.”

“Fortunately I have never learned to take the good advice I give myself nor the counsel of my fears.”

Πολυμαθίη νόον οὐ διδάσκει.

“The learning of many things teaches not understanding.”

“Were I to describe the blessings I desire in life, I would be happy in a few but faithful friends. Might I choose my talent, it should rather be good than laming. I would consult in the choice of my house, convenience rather than state; and, for my circumstances, desire a moderate but independent fortune. Business enough to secure me from indolence, and leisure enough always to have an hour to spare. I would have no master, and I desire few servants. 1 would not be led away by ambition, nor perplexed with disputes. I would enjoy the blessings of health but rather be beholden for it to a regular life and an easy mind, than to the school of Hippocrates. As to my passions, since we cannot be wholly divested of them, I would hate only those whose manners rendered them odious, and love only where I knew I ought. Thus would I pass cheerfully through that portion of my life which cannot last always, & with resignation wait for that which will last forever.”

“A wise man ought always to follow the paths beaten by great men, and to imitate those who have been supreme, so that if his ability does not equal theirs, at least it will savour of it.”

“You know, the older you get, the more you begin to depend upon irony as the last human element you can rely on. Whatever exists will, sooner or later, be turned inside out.”

“It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be a Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they know only their side of the question.”

“The pursuit of perfection as the crow flies is an activity both impious and unavoidable in human life. It involves the penalties of impiety (the anger of the gods and social isolation), and its reward is not that of achievement but that of having made the attempt. It is an activity, therefore, suitable for individuals, but not for societies. For an individual who is impelled to engage in it, the reward may exceed both the penalty and the inevitable defeat. The penitent may hope, or even expect, to fall back, a wounded hero, into the arms of an understanding and forgiving society. And even the impenitent can be reconciled with himself in the powerful necessity of his impulse, though, like Prometheus, he must suffer for it. For a society, on the other hand, the penalty is a chaos of conflicting ideals, the disruption of a common life, and the reward is the renown which attaches to monumental folly.”

“The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life.”

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

“I suppose this prodigious diversity of opinions is caused, in the first place, by the weakness of the human intellect; and, in the second, by pride. We have no means of measuring this vast machine, we are unable to calculate its workings; we know neither its guiding principles nor its final purpose; we do not know ourselves, we know neither our nature nor the spirit that moves us; we scarcely know whether man is one or many; we are surrounded by impenetrable mysteries. These mysteries are beyond the region of sense, we think we can penetrate them by the light of reason, yet we fall back our imagination. Through this imagined world each forces a way for himself which he holds to be right; none can tell whether his path will lead him to the goal. Yet we long to know and understand it all. The one thing we do not know is the limit of the knowable. We prefer to trust to chance and to believe what is not true, rather than to own that not one of us can see what really is. A fragment of some vast whole whose bounds are beyond our gaze, abandoned by its Creator to our foolish quarrels, we are vain enough to want to determine the nature of that whole and our own relations with regards to it.”

...o δὲ ἀνεξέταστος βίος οὐ βιωτὸς ἀνθρώπῳ...

“…the unexamined life is not the life of a human being...”

“I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.”

“Understanding is a wellspring of life to him that hath it.”

Ρᾷον δ᾽ οἱ πολλοὶ κακοῦργοι ὄντεςδεξιοὶ κέκληνται ἢ ἀμαθεῖς ἀγαθοί, καὶ τῷ μὲν αἰσχύνονται, ἐπὶ δὲ τῷἀγάλλονται.

“Indeed it is generally the case that men are readier to call rogues clever than simpletons honest, and are as ashamed of being the second as they are proud of being the first.”