Topic

wisdom

Not who you're looking for? Others named wisdom: anonymous medieval morality play · township in Benton County, Missouri · personification of wisdom · 2022 studio album by Altaria

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Overview

Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence, and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence. Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, and there are several distinct approaches to assessing the characteristics attributed to wisdom. Definitions The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as "Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgment in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly, sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp. to folly;" also "Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning, erudition." Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as "the right use of knowledge". Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the "attitude of wisdom" as "acting with knowledge while doubting what one knows".

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Prima sapientiae clavis definitur, assidua scilicet seu frequens interrogatio … Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus.”
— Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.
“A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.”
— Hillel the Younger Pirkei Avot 2:5
“Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.”
— George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. 5 (1906), Ch. 8
“No one could be so wise as Thurlow looked.”
— Charles James Fox. See Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Volume V, p. 661; also 551. Said also of Webster.
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.”
— Proverbs, IV. 7
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
— Attributed to Mark Twain in The Reader's Digest (September 1939), p. 22. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). This has been widely reprinted and attributed to Twain, but has never been found in his works, though various Twain groups and the Twain Papers staff have searched for it.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.

On IJR

No public IJR answers mention wisdom yet. As people ask about it and share their answers, they'll appear here.

Not who you're looking for? Others named wisdom: anonymous medieval morality play · township in Benton County, Missouri · personification of wisdom · 2022 studio album by Altaria

Overview

Wisdom, sapience, or sagacity is the ability to contemplate and act productively using knowledge, experience, understanding, common sense, and insight. Wisdom is associated with attributes such as unbiased judgment, compassion, experiential self-knowledge, self-transcendence, and non-attachment, and virtues such as ethics and benevolence. Wisdom has been defined in many different ways, and there are several distinct approaches to assessing the characteristics attributed to wisdom. Definitions The Oxford English Dictionary defines wisdom as "Capacity of judging rightly in matters relating to life and conduct; soundness of judgment in the choice of means and ends; sometimes, less strictly, sound sense, esp. in practical affairs: opp. to folly;" also "Knowledge (esp. of a high or abstruse kind); enlightenment, learning, erudition." Charles Haddon Spurgeon defined wisdom as "the right use of knowledge". Robert I. Sutton and Andrew Hargadon defined the "attitude of wisdom" as "acting with knowledge while doubting what one knows".

From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Notable quotes

“Prima sapientiae clavis definitur, assidua scilicet seu frequens interrogatio … Dubitando enim ad inquisitionem venimus; inquirendo veritatem percipimus.”
— Constant and frequent questioning is the first key to wisdom … For through doubting we are led to inquire, and by inquiry we perceive the truth.
“A boor cannot be sin-fearing, an ignoramus cannot be pious, a bashful one cannot learn, a short-tempered person cannot teach, nor does anyone who does much business grow wise.”
— Hillel the Younger Pirkei Avot 2:5
“Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it.”
— George Santayana, The Life of Reason, Vol. 5 (1906), Ch. 8
“No one could be so wise as Thurlow looked.”
— Charles James Fox. See Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, Volume V, p. 661; also 551. Said also of Webster.
“Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom; and with all thy getting get understanding.”
— Proverbs, IV. 7
“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”
— Attributed to Mark Twain in The Reader's Digest (September 1939), p. 22. Reported as unverified in Respectfully Quoted: A Dictionary of Quotations (1989). This has been widely reprinted and attributed to Twain, but has never been found in his works, though various Twain groups and the Twain Papers staff have searched for it.

Quotes via Wikiquote (CC BY-SA), each with its original source.