QuoteProject
It's always better to be wise than to be smart.
Alan Alda
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Wisdom encompasses deeper understanding and insight, which is more valuable than just being clever.

This quote emphasizes that wisdom, which involves the judicious application of knowledge and experience, is more beneficial than mere intelligence or cleverness. While being smart may help one solve problems quickly, wisdom guides one to make better life choices and decisions, leading to a more fulfilling existence.

Themes

WisdomIntelligenceKnowledgeUnderstandingLife Lessons

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of lifelong learning and personal development.

More from Alan Alda

Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.
Alan AldaRead
Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in awhile, or the light won't come in.
Alan AldaRead
Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself.
Alan AldaRead
Here's my Golden Rule for a tarnished age: Be fair with others, but keep after them until they're fair with you.
Alan AldaRead
If you know what you're looking for, that's all you'll get - what's previously known. But when you're open to what's possible, you get something new - that's creativity.
Alan AldaRead
I found I wasn't asking good enough questions because I assumed I knew something. I would box them into a corner with a badly formed question, and they didn't know how to get out of it. Now, I let them take me through it step by step, and I listen.
Alan AldaRead

Similar quotes

We must always think about things, and we must think about things as they are, not as they are said to be.
George Bernard ShawRead
Pleasure puts you to sleep and pain wakes you up. If you don't want to suffer, don't go to sleep.
Sri Nisargadatta MaharajRead
Cunning... is but the low mimic of wisdom.
PlatoRead
But I deal with this by meditating and by understanding I've been put on the planet to serve humanity. I have to remind myself to live simply and not overindulge, which is a constant battle in a material world.
Sandra CisnerosRead
All those paper people living in their paper houses, burning the future to stay warm.
John GreenRead
He found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didn’t try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. … The whole point of crying is to quit before you coined it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted
Richard YatesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.