Showing posts with label wisdom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label wisdom. Show all posts

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Post #3195

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then say it with the utmost levity.
—George Bernard Shaw

Sunday, October 02, 2022

Post #3144

The wise man alone is free, and every fool is a slave.
—Stoic Maxim

Sunday, April 03, 2022

Post #3118

Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.
—Titus Maccius Plautus

Sunday, January 02, 2022

Post #3105

It is not hoary hairs that bring wisdom; some have an old head on young shoulders.
—Menander

Sunday, October 04, 2020

Post #3039

The wisest man may always learn something from the humblest peasant.
—J. Petit-Senn

Friday, June 21, 2019

Post #2855

A man cannot learn to be wise any more than he can learn to be handsome.
—H. W. Shaw

Thursday, June 20, 2019

Post #2854

He gains wisdom in a happy way, who gains it by another's experience.
—Plautus

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Post #2853

The wisest man is generally he who thinks himself the least so.
―Nicolas Boileau Despreaux

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Post #2852

In youth and beauty wisdom is but rare!
—Homer

Wednesday, January 31, 2018

Post #2503

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise!
—Homer

Monday, October 30, 2017

Post #2436

As for me, all I know is that I know nothing.
—Socrates

Friday, October 27, 2017

Post #2435

The price of wisdom is above rubies.
—The Bible

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

Post #2342

Whoever is wise is apt to suspect and be diffident of himself, and upon that account is willing to "hearken unto counsel" ; whereas the foolish man, being in proportion to his folly full of himself, and swallowed up in conceit, will seldom take any counsel but his own, and for that very reason,
because it is his own.
—John Balguy

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Post #2113

The fool who knows his foolishness is wise so far, at least; but a fool who thinks himself wise, he is called a fool indeed.
—Dhammapada

Friday, April 29, 2016

Post #2065

You can never be wise unless you love reading.
—Samuel Johnson

Wednesday, February 03, 2016

Post #2003

Wisdom prepares for the worst, but folly leaves the worst for the day when it comes.
—Rev. Richard Cecil

Thursday, October 29, 2015

Post #1934

Wisdom alone is the true and unalloyed coin for which we ought to exchange all things, for this and with this everything is bought and sold—fortitude, temperance, and justice; in a word, true virtue subsists with wisdom.
—Plato

Thursday, June 11, 2015

Post #1834

By wisdom wealth is won; but riches purchased wisdom yet for none.
— Bayard Taylor

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Post #1812

Wisdom makes a slow defence against trouble, though at last a sure one.
—Oliver Goldsmith

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Post #1752

If you wish to know how much preferable wisdom is to gold, then observe: if you change gold you get silver for it, but your gold is gone; but if you exchange one sort of wisdom for another, you obtain fresh knowledge, and at the same time keep what you possessed before.

—Talmud

The Penalty of Leadership

In every field of human endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or in a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man’s work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be mediocre, he will be left severely alone – if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a -wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a commonplace painting. Whatsoever you write, or paint, or play, or sing, or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work has been done, those who are disappointed or envious, continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while the little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy – but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as human passions – envy, fear, greed, ambition, and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains – the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed, and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live — lives.
written by Theodore F. MacManus

A deadly viper once bit a hole snipe's hide; But 'twas the viper, not the snipe, that died.

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One From the Archives

Post #1234

It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations. Bartlett's Familiar Quotations is an admirable work, and I studied...

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