“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

Last update June 13, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than it…" by Khalil Gibran?
Khalil Gibran photo
Khalil Gibran 111
Lebanese artist, poet, and writer 1883–1931

Related quotes

George Sarton photo

“Wisdom is not mathematical, nor astronomical, nor zoological; when it talks too much of any one thing it ceases to be itself.”

George Sarton (1884–1956) American historian of science

Preface.
A History of Science Vol.1 Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece (1952)
Context: Wisdom is not mathematical, nor astronomical, nor zoological; when it talks too much of any one thing it ceases to be itself. There are wise physicists, but wisdom is not physical; there are wise physicians, but wisdom is not medical.

Epicurus photo

“Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul.”

"Letter to Menoeceus" http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html, as translated in Stoic and Epicurean (1910) by Robert Drew Hicks, p. 167
Variant translation: Let no one delay to study philosophy while he is young, and when he is old let him not become weary of the study; for no man can ever find the time unsuitable or too late to study the health of his soul. And he who asserts either that it is not yet time to philosophize, or that the hour is passed, is like a man who should say that the time is not yet come to be happy, or that it is too late. So that both young and old should study philosophy, the one in order that, when he is old, he many be young in good things through the pleasing recollection of the past, and the other in order that he may be at the same time both young and old, in consequence of his absence of fear for the future.
Context: Let no one be slow to seek wisdom when he is young nor weary in the search of it when he has grown old. For no age is too early or too late for the health of the soul. And to say that the season for studying philosophy has not yet come, or that it is past and gone, is like saying that the season for happiness is not yet or that it is now no more. Therefore, both old and young alike ought to seek wisdom, the former in order that, as age comes over him, he may be young in good things because of the grace of what has been, and the latter in order that, while he is young, he may at the same time be old, because he has no fear of the things which are to come. So we must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed towards attaining it.

Primo Levi photo
Arthur C. Clarke photo
Brandon Sanderson photo

“There is beauty in compassion, but one must learn wisdom too.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Final Empire

Hester Thrale photo

“Tis never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest, or for their wit that one loves the wittiest; 'tis for benevolence, and virtue, and honest fondness, one loves people; the other qualities make one proud of loving them too.”

Hester Thrale (1741–1821) Welsh author and salon-holder

Letter to Fanny Burney; Charlotte Barrett (ed.) Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay (1854) vol. 2, p. 3.

John Lancaster Spalding photo

“Folly will run its course and it is the part of wisdom not to take it too seriously.”

John Lancaster Spalding (1840–1916) Catholic bishop

Source: Aphorisms and Reflections (1901), p. 216

Thomas Fuller (writer) photo

“4671. The most exquisite Folly is made of Wisdom too fine spun.”

Thomas Fuller (writer) (1654–1734) British physician, preacher, and intellectual

Introductio ad prudentiam: Part II (1727), Gnomologia (1732)

Diogenes Laërtius photo

Related topics