Knowing is one thing. Believing another. Understanding another. –Amos Oz
In seeking Wisdom, the first stage is silence, the second listening, the third remembrance, the fourth practicing, the fifth teaching. –Rabbi Solomon ibn Gabirol
It’s amazing how much mature wisdom resembles being too tired. –Robert Heinlein
[M]ost poetic sounding adages are plain wrong. Borrowed wisdom can be vicious. I need to make a huge effort not to be swayed by well-sounding remarks. I remind myself of Einstein’s remark that common sense is nothing but a collection of misconceptions acquired by age eighteen. Furthermore, What sounds intelligent in a conversation or a meeting, or, particularly, in the media, is suspicious. –Nassim Nicholas Taleb
[K]nowledge does not predict behavior. Smart people can do dumb things. … Some cardiologists are chain-smokers. Einstein unlocked the secrets of the universe, but he ran his sailboat up on a sandbar. I have met nutritionists with Ph.D.s who confessed that while driving alone late at night in strange cities and seeing the giant yellow arches, have pulled in, ordered the double cheeseburger with bacon and the super-size fries, and parked in the shadows and slid down low in the seat and eaten the whole bucket of slops. Theologians have cashed in their pensions and flown off to
Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil not the strength to choose between the two. –John Cheever
The wise man listens to meaning; the fool only gets the noise. The modern Greek poet C. P. Cavafy wrote a piece in 1915 after Philostratus’ adage “For the gods perceive things in the future, but the wise perceive things about to happen.” Cavafy wrote: “In their intense mediation the hidden sound of things approaching reaches them and they listen reverently while in the street outside the people hear nothing at all.” –Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Fooled by Randomness
I don’t know much. I know a little bit about golf. I know how to make a stew. And I know how to be a decent man. –Byron Nelson
The most certain sign of wisdom is cheerfulness. --Michel de Montaigne
