“Ignorance and bungling with love are better than wisdom and skill without.”
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Henry David Thoreau 385
1817-1862 American poet, essayist, naturalist, and abolitio… 1817–1862Related quotes
The Book of Ammon
Context: Love without courage and wisdom is sentimentality, as with the ordinary church member. Courage without love and wisdom is foolhardiness, as with the ordinary soldier. Wisdom without love and courage is cowardice, as with the ordinary intellectual. Therefore one with love, courage, and wisdom is one in a million who moves the world, as with Jesus, Buddha, and Gandhi.
“What is better than wisdom? Woman. And what is better than a good woman? Nothing.”
“Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.”
After Long Silence http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1432/
The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933)
Context: Speech after long silence; it is right,
All other lovers being estranged or dead,
Unfriendly lamplight hid under its shade,
The curtains drawn upon unfriendly night,
That we descant and yet again descant
Upon the supreme theme of Art and Song:
Bodily decrepitude is wisdom; young
We loved each other and were ignorant.
“Better be mute, than dispute with the Ignorant.”
The Sayings of the Wise (1555)
“It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it.”
Fragment 109
Variant translation: Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.
Numbered fragments
“To be without love is to be without grace, what matters most in life.
We is so much better than I.”
Source: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas
“It's a good thing to be laughed at. It's better than to be ignored.”
In a handwritten note to the Postmaster General, who wanted to take action against "That Was The Week That Was", a satirical program.
Taken from letters-of-note.com http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/06/it-is-good-thing-to-be-laughed-at.html
1980s