“Wisdom has never really proved to be much help to anyone (nobody ever said: ‘I can’t open this jar of marmalade - you do it - you’re wiser than me’) and yet as we all get older, we would like to think we are acquiring wisdom. But why? Is it really wise to be wise? When the revolution comes, isn’t it always the wise who get the chop first? Perhaps it’s more sensible to be unwise.”
Miles Kington, quoted as one of two “Apercus du jour” in “Social Studies” in Globe & Mail May 20, 2008
"Talent does what it can; genius does what it must."
Edward George Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) [the guy who also said "the pen is mightier than the sword" and started a novel "It was a dark and stormy night"]
"The truth is that I care more for my dog, donkey, and garden in the little English village where we live than for all the publicity in the world."
Frances Chesterton (GKC's wife), "to an American reporter during one of G.K.’s lecture tours”, quoted by Therese Warmus in Gilbert Magazine Vol. 8 #4 (Jan.-Feb. 2005)
In my latest National Post column I warn that the largest lesson of the Christine Blasey Ford-Brett Kavanaugh confrontation could easily be seen as: Avoid the opposite sex entirely.
"It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say, and then don't say it."
Sam Levenson, quoted as "Thought du jour" in "Social Studies" in Globe & Mail August 25, 2010
In my latest National Post column I say the Ottawa tornado is a worrying reminder of how fragile our modern high-tech just-in-time way of life really is.
"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."
Often attributed to Immanuel Kant but appears to be from Will Durant, part of Durant's effort to explain Kant's thought (whatever the merits of his analysis, Kant's often impenetrable prose style did not lend itself to bon mots)
"The world is always ready to receive talent with open arms. Very often it does not know what to do with genius. Talent is a docile creature. It bows its head meekly while the world slips the collar over it... It draws its load cheerfully, and is patient of the bit and of the whip. But genius is always impatient of its harness; its wild blood makes it hard to train."
Oliver Wendell Holmes, quoted as "Thought du jour" in Globe & Mail December 4, 2001