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Wise Quotes

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Wise Quotes

“Zip codes might be great for sorting mail, but they should not determine the quality of a child s education or success in the future workforce," said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. "With common standards and assessments, students, parents, and teachers will have a clear, consistent understanding of the skills necessary for students to succeed after high school and compete with peers across the state line and across the ocean.”

“If Henry James were still with us, he'd not only approve of Paris, He Said, he could have written it himself, though without his serpentine syntax. It's a delicious treat, studded with wise and beautifully observed detail, that places side by side those perpetually fascinating antagonists, the eager, casual American and the meticulous, pleasure-driven French. Christine Sneed knows everyone's intimate secrets and her book is lively, amusing, and, ultimately, kind to pretty much all of them.”

“The wise man has his follies, no less than the fool; but it has been said that herein lies the difference--the follies of the fool are known to the world, but hidden from himself; the follies of the wise are known to himself, but hidden from the world.”

“But my knowledge of Marxism was limited to knowing that Marx was a Jew, and that he had a long white beard. I said to Lunatcharsky (the political communist commissar for Education, 1918, fh) 'Whatever you do, don't ask me why I painted in blue or green, and why you can see a calf inside the cow's belly, etc. On the other hand you're welcome: if Marx is so wise, let him come back to life and explain it himself'. I showed him my canvases.”

“The only people who are afraid of file sharing are the people whose albums are so dull presentation-wise that nobody cares about owning the actual finished product, and the people who have so little connection to their listeners that said listeners have no reason to care whether the artists they like are getting reimbursed for their efforts.”

“There is no man ... however wise, who has not at some period of his youth said things, or lived a life, the memory of which is so unpleasant to him that he would gladly expunge it. And yet he ought not entirely to regret it, because he cannot be certain that he has indeed become a wise man -- so far as it is possible for any of us to be wise -- unless he has passed through all the fatuous or unwholesome incarnations by which that ultimate stage must be preceded.”

“Much has seen said of the wisdom of old age. Old age is wise, I grant, for itself, but not wise for the community. It is wise in declining new enterprises, for it has not the power nor the time to execute them; wise in shrinking from difficulty, for it has not the strength to overcome it; wise in avoiding danger, for it lacks the faculty of ready and swift action, by which dangers are parried and converted into advantages. But this is not wisdom for mankind at large, by whom new enterprises must be undertaken, dangers met, and difficulties surmounted.”

“[Shahrazad] had perused the books, annals and legends of preceding Kings, and the stories, examples and instances of by gone men and things; indeed it was said that she had collected a thousand books of histories relating to antique races and departed rulers. She had perused the works of the poets and knew them by heart; she had studied philosophy and the sciences, arts and accomplishments; and she was pleasant and polite, wise and witty, well read and well bred.”

“A wise man once said, 'Every one of us is given the gift of life, and what a strange gift it is. If it is preserved jealously and selfishly, it impoverishes and saddens. But if it is spent for others, it enriches and beautifies.' My fellow Americans: We can debate policies and programs, but in the end what separates the two parties in this election campaign is whether we use the gift of life for others or only ourselves.”

“Love is about feeling that there is something bigger than just ourselves and our own worries and existence. Whether it is love of another person, of country, of God, of an idea, love is fundamentally an intense devotion to this notion that something is bigger than us. Love is ultimately larger than friendship, comfort, ceremony, knowledge, or joy. Indeed, as the Four Wise Ones once said, it may be all you need.”

“Much has been said of the loneliness of wisdom, and how much the Truth seeker becomes a pilgrim wandering from star to star. To the ignorant, the wise man is lonely because he abides in distant heights of the mind. But the wise man himself does not feel lonely. Wisdom brings him nearer to life; closer to the heart of the world than the foolish man can ever be. Bookishness may lead to loneliness, and scholarship may end in a battle of beliefs, but the wise man gazing off into space sees not an emptiness, but a space full of life, truth, and law.”

“Josh [Friedman] and I have been friends for years, and he said, "Hey, if you ever want to do a TV show, I can take it over and run it," and I was like, "Yes!" He's always been so busy that I never dared to ask that, but it just worked out, time wise, that this was the season where we could probably do it, so I jumped at it. So, even though I'm busy with other stuff, I'm excited to be writing this.”

“It really was something, to see Ram Bahadur Bomjon, apparently living without food or water. Before I went on that trip I'd asked advice on it from a very wise person who I love and revere - basically trying to see if I was somehow disrespecting Buddhism by trying to write about it, and also looking for some grounding on what stance to take ... and my friend said, "Well, why don't you just go and see?" And I hear that in my head all the time now: "Why don't you go and see?"”

“There's a misconception about girls accusing people of sexual assault. There's this sense of, Well, she might be lying, she might be telling the truth, it's really a he-said, she-said. But it turns out if you study the cases, something like 97 percent of the cases are actually true. And you think about it common sense - wise: Why would a young girl or a woman bring this attention upon herself? It's nonsensical. It sets up a binary equation where, in fact, if a girl makes that accusation, she's usually not lying about it.”

“Anyway, when I got out of the Army, I went to see a therapist. And she said, what seems to be the trouble? And I said I want to give all my money away. And she said, how much do you have? And I said, I owe $300. She stared at me for several seconds, and she said, I see. Well, let's get to work. And maybe by the time you do have some money, you'll be wise enough to know what to do with it.”