As quoted in Courage: the heart and spirit of every woman : reclaiming the forgotten virtue (2001) by Sandra Ford Walston
“Before we acquire great power we must acquire wisdom to use it well.”
Source: Initiation Into Hermetics (1956), p. 170.
“Wisdom is a perfection of knowledge acquired through experience.”
“Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is.”
All and Everything: Views from the Real World (1973)
Context: Knowledge can be acquired by a suitable and complete study, no matter what the starting point is. Only one must know how to "learn." What is nearest to us is man; and you are the nearest of all men to yourself. Begin with the study of yourself; remember the saying "Know thyself."
No. 15
On the Interpretation of Nature (1753)
Context: There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge available to us: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation. Observation collects facts; reflection combines them; experimentation verifies the result of that combination. Our observation of nature must be diligent, our reflection profound, and our experiments exact. We rarely see these three means combined; and for this reason, creative geniuses are not common.
Source: The Selfish Gene (1976, 1989), Ch. 3. Immortal Coils
Context: Genes do indirectly control the manufacture of bodies, and the influence is strictly one way: acquired characteristics are not inherited. No matter how much knowledge and wisdom you acquire during your life, not one jot will be passed on to your children by genetic means. Each new generation starts from scratch.
Letter to Christian Northoff (1497), as translated in Collected Works of Erasmus (1974), p. 114
Quoted in “Collected works of Periyar E.V.R.” p. 511.
Society
“Not by age but by capacity is wisdom acquired.”
Non aetate, verum ingenio apiscitur sapientia.
Trinummus, Act II, sc. 2, line 88.
Trinummus (The Three Coins)
