You can never know everything, and part of what you know is always wrong. A portion of wisdom lies in knowing that. A portion of courage lies in going on anyway.
Interpretation
Recognizing the limits of knowledge is a key aspect of wisdom and courage.
This quote emphasizes that complete knowledge is unattainable and that misconceptions are inevitable. True wisdom involves the acknowledgment of our ignorance, while courage is defined by the ability to continue pursuing our goals despite the uncertainties and possible errors in our understanding.
In practice
In a discussion about personal growth and lifelong learning.
Fantasy is an area where it is possible to talk about right and wrong, good and evil, with a straight face. In mainstream fiction and even in a good deal of mystery, these things are presented as simply two sides of the same coin. Never really more than a matter of where you happen to be standing.
The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.
Til shade is gone, til water is gone Into the shadow with teeth bared Screaming defiance with the last breath To spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.
He came like the wind, like the wind touched everything, and like the wind was gone. -from The Dragon Reborn. By Loial, son of Arent son of Halan, the Fourth Age.
The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.
Duty is heavier than a mountain, Dai Shan.' That time, Lan did flinch. How long had it been since someone had been able to do that to him with mere words? He remembered teaching that same concept to a youth out of the Two Rivers. A sheepherder, innocent of the world, fearful of the fate laid out before him by the Pattern.
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.
If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.
Faithfulness and sincerity are the highest things.
During bad circumstances, which is the human inheritance, you must decide not to be reduced. You have your humanity, and you must not allow anything to reduce that. We are obliged to know we are global citizens. Disasters remind us we are world citizens, whether we like it or not.
When from our better selves we have too long been parted by the hurrying world, and droop. Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired, how gracious, how benign is solitude.
Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you - and kill you the long, slow, hard way.
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