Wisdom

I believe that the quote "it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt" is from an Englishman, and i want to say that it was in Chesterfield's letters to his son, but i ain't certain about that . . .

my favorite Clemensism on the subject of wisdom is the one to the effect that at age 16 he knew his father to be the most ignorant man alive, and that at age 21 he was surprised to discover what the old boy had learned in five years . . .

'The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.'

~ Thomas Merton

'You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.'

~ Mark Twain

'Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.'

~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

'Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself.....True happiness is born of self-reliance.'

~ The Laws of Manu

'Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable. '

~ Sidney J. Harris

'Learn to obey before you command.'

~ Solon

'Our deeds follow us, and what we have been makes us what we are.'

~ John Dykes

'Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone.'

~ G. B. Stern

'While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.'

~ Samuel Johnson

'When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'

~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

'Use, do not abuse; neither abstinence nor excell ever renders man happy.'

~ Voltaire

'One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.'

~ Bertrand Russell

'If I have ever made any valuable discoveries, it has been owing more to patient attention, than to any other talent.'

~ Isaac Newton

'One thing you can give and still keep is your word.'

~Anonymous

'Life is too important to be taken seriously.'

~ Oscar Wilde

'We would often be sorry if our wishes were gratified.'

~ Aesop

'Life has no other discipline to impose, if we would not but realize it, than to accept life unquestioningly. Everything we shut our eyes to, everything we run away from, everything we deny, denigrate, or despise, serves to defeat us in the end. What seems nasty, painful, evil, can become a source of beauty, joy, and strength if faced with an open mind. Every moment is a golden one for him who has the vision to recognize is as such.'

~ Henry Miller

'Wit is a treacherous dart. It is perhaps the only weapon with which it is possible to stab oneself in one's own back.'

~ Geoffrey Bocca

'When a man points a finger at someone else, he should remember that four of his fingers are pointing at himself.'

~ Louis Nizer

'Much learning does not teach understanding.'

~ Heraclitus

Herakles is too little known in the contemporary world, he was a fount of wisdom:

No man ever crosses the same river twice, for the river changes, and so does the man[/b]

Too bad for the contemporary world, huh, Setanta?

Glad to know another fan.

Yeah, i was given The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton when i was about seven years of age, and spent years thereafter reading ancient history and literature . . . i think that, as is most history, it is badly presented, and students resent being forced to learn what they have not enjoyed . . .

Guess I was lucky during my school years to always have very enthusiastic history teachers. I'm a sucker for enthusiasm.

My Dad and Grandfather both loved to talk about history ~ and I was a rapt audience.....Makes me wonder if they loved talking or if they loved watching me listen..... :wink:

'Fear not those who argue, but those who dodge.'

~ Marie Ebner von Eschenbach

Many of us are in love with the sounds of our own voices, or so said my half-Irish grandmother, as she excoriated the characters of all Irishmen, as though she weren't a part of that race . . . my grandfather almost never talked of history, but he gave me one good book after another, and created my love of the subject. For me, Herakles, Titus Livius, Herodatus, Polybius--they're all old friends; to me, Peter Alexeevich, Maria Theresa, Washington, Bernal Diaz, Jeanne d'Arc, Nicolo Machiavelli, Porfiro Diaz, Jan Sobieski--they're all living people, part of a community in which i also live, even though i've never met them--they are all very real to me.

Bravo, sir!

'The world is wide, and I will not waste my life in friction when it could be turned into momentum.'

~ Frances Willard

'Just trust yourself, then you will know how to live.'

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe