Wisdom and Ignorance

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.

H. H. Williams, in Wisdom and Ignorance and Work and Recreation

I was asked by the customs if I had anything to declare. I said: Yes, I'd like to declare -- I'm a genius!

Oscar Wilde, in Wisdom and Ignorance

"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "If it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."

Lewis Carroll, in Wisdom and Ignorance

"Begin at the beginning," the King said gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop."

Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain -- and most fools do.

Dale Carnegie, in Wisdom and Ignorance

A man lives by believing in something, not by debating and arguing about many things.

Thomas Carlyle, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Never mistake knowledge for wisdom. One helps you make a living; the other helps you make a life.

Sandra Carey, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

H. G. Wells, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Half a man's life is devoted to what he calls improvements, yet the original had some quality which is lost in the process.

E. B. White, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Education is an admirable thing, but nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

Oscar Wilde, in Wisdom and Ignorance

A hunch is creativity trying to tell you something.

Frank Capra, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Man is a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.

Oscar Wilde, in Science and Religion and Wisdom and Ignorance

Any fool can tell the truth, but it requires a man of some sense to know how to lie well.

Samuel Butler, in Wisdom and Ignorance

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

In Paris they simply stared when I spoke to them in French; I never did succeed in making those idiots understand their language.

Mark Twain, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Wit is the only wall between us and the dark.

Mark Van Doren, in Wisdom and Ignorance

Life happens too fast for you ever to think about it. If you could just persuade people of this, but they insist on amassing information.

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., in Wisdom and Ignorance

Anything that is too stupid to be spoken is sung.

Voltaire, in Art and Literature and Wisdom and Ignorance

A witty saying proves nothing.

Voltaire, in Success and Failure and Wisdom and Ignorance

Talking with you is sort of the conversational equivalent of an out of body experience.

Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes, in Wisdom and Ignorance