“The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.”

— Jonathan Swift

Thoughts on Various Subjects from Miscellanies (1711-1726)

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Jonathan Swift 141

Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet 1667–1745

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“The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied.”

Henry David Thoreau book Life Without Principle

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Context: The title wise is, for the most part, falsely applied. How can one be a wise man, if he does not know any better how to live than other men? — if he is only more cunning and intellectually subtle?

“As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves.”

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“For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.”

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“In order to render this change eligible as well to the society as to the slaves, it would be necessary that a complete incorporation of the latter into the former should result from the act of manumission. This is rendered impossible by the prejudices of the whites, prejudices which proceeding principally from the difference of color must be considered…”

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“A wise man can play the part of a clown, but a clown can't play the part of a wise man.”

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“The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
God never made his work for man to mend.”

John Dryden (1631–1700) English poet and playwright of the XVIIth century

Epistle to John Driden of Chesterton (1700), lines 92–95.
Context: Better to hunt in fields, for health unbought,
Than fee the doctor for a nauseous draught.
The wise, for cure, on exercise depend;
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“What relation has the life of the individual to the life of the universe? ...The former is absolutely subordinate, inconceivably infinitesimal compared with the latter. The becoming of the latter bears not the slightest apparent reference to the becoming of the former. ...The one seems finite, limited, temporal, the other by comparison infinite, boundless, eternal. This disparity has forced itself upon the attention of man ever since his first childlike attempts at thought.”

Karl Pearson (1857–1936) English mathematician and biometrician

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“The discovery of truth is prevented more effectively, not by the false appearance things present and which mislead into error, not directly by weakness of the reasoning powers, but by preconceived opinion, by prejudice.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Parerga and Paralipomena

Vol. 2, Ch. 1, § 17
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Counsels and Maxims

“The latter part of a wise man’s life is taken up in curing the follies, prejudices, and false opinions he had contracted in the former.”

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