Wisdom

Moral authority is never retained by any attempt to hold on to it. It comes without seeking and is retained without effort.

It is unwise to be too sure of one’s own wisdom. It is healthy to be reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.

Even as wisdom often comes from the mouths of babes, so does it often come from the mouths of old people. The golden rule is to test everything in the light of reason and experience, no matter from where it comes.

Common sense is a realized sense of proportion.

An ounce of patience is worth more than tons of preaching.

Anger and intolerance are the enemies of correct understanding.

An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation; nor does truth become error because nobody sees it.

There was a man in our town, And he was wondrous wise; He jumped into a bramble bush And scratched out both his eyes.

You don’t need a weather man To know which way the wind blows

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not, You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy. In order to arrive at what you do not know You must go by the way which is the way of ignorance.

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, The green casque has outdone your elegance.

And one trembles to be so understood and, at last, To understand, as if to know became The fatality of seeing things too well.

It asks a little of us here. It asks of us a certain height, So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may take something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.

We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

Degenerate sons and daughters, Life is too strong for you— It takes life to love life.

An old man’s eagle mind.

Speech after long silence; it is right, All other lovers being estranged or dead… That we descant and yet again descant Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song: Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young We loved each other and were ignorant.

A leveling, rancorous, rational sort of mind That never looked out of the eye of a saint Or out of drunkard’s eye.

Where nobody gets old and godly and grave, Where nobody gets old and crafty and wise, Where nobody gets old and bitter of tongue.

Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth; We have it only when we are half earth.

Who most has suffered, takes dejectedly His seat upon the intellectual throne.

My special thanks, whose even-balanced soul, From first youth tested up to extreme old age, Business could not make dull, nor passion wild: Who saw life steadily and saw it whole.

No, never say nothin’ without you’re compelled tu, An’ then don’t say nothin’ thet you can be held tu.