"The Egg-Head's Egger-On" (2000).
2000s, 2000, Unacknowledged Legislation: Writers in the Public Sphere (2000)
The Razor's Edge (1943)
Context: Nothing in the world is permanent, and we're foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we're still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it. If change is of the essence of existence one would have thought it only sensible to make it the premise of our philosophy.
“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”
On Oliver Goldsmith1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“The Intellectual in America”, p. 5
A Sad Heart at the Supermarket: Essays & Fables (1962)
“An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows.”
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.”
Mark Twain and I by Opie Read
“A wise man can learn more from a foolish question than a fool can learn from a wise answer.”
“The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature.”
Rose, Blanche, and Violet (London: Smith, Elder, 1848) vol. 1, pp. viii-ix
Context: The moral nature of man is more sacred in my eyes than his intellectual nature. I know they cannot be divorced — that without intelligence we should be Brutes — but it is the tendency of our gaping, wondering dispositions to give pre-eminence to those faculties which most astonish us. Strength of character seldom, if ever, astonishes; goodness, lovingness, and quiet self-sacrifice, are worth all the talents in the world.
“Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together.”
Source: The Power-House (1916), Ch. 3 "Tells of a Midsummer Night"
Context: Civilisation needs more than the law to hold it together. You see, all mankind are not equally willing to accept as divine justice what is called human law.
Siddhartha (1922)
Context: Wisdom is not communicable. The wisdom which a wise man tries to communicate always sounds foolish... Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it.
