The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Francois De La RochefoucauldRead
As one grows older, one becomes wiser and more foolish.
Interpretation
Growing older brings both increased wisdom and continued folly.
This quote captures the paradox of aging, suggesting that while experience and knowledge typically lead to wisdom, they can also coexist with a sense of foolishness. It highlights how the complexities of life can lead us to make mistakes, regardless of our age or wisdom, as we navigate our personal growth and learning.
In practice
This quote can be used in a graduation speech to reflect on the journey of learning.
The generality of virtuous women are like hidden treasures, they are safe only because nobody has sought after them.
Old men delight in giving good advice as a consolation for the fact that they can no longer set bad examples.
Some counterfeits reproduce so very well the truth that it would be a flaw of judgment not to be deceived by them.
Conceit causes more conversation than wit.
The defects and faults of the mind are like wounds in the body; after all imaginable care has been taken to heal them up, still there will be a scar left behind, and they are in continual danger of breaking the skin and bursting out again.
To understand matters rightly we should understand their details; and as that knowledge is almost infinite, our knowledge is always superficial and imperfect.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
Let your critics make you humble, and your enemies make you wise. Learn from every stumble but let nothing keep you down, for you were born to rise!
We, or at least I, can have no conception of human life and human thought in a hundred years or fifty years. Perhaps my greatest wisdom is the knowledge that I do not know. The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for thy can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.
It takes considerable knowledge just to realize the extent of your own ignorance.
Accept what comes to you totally & completely so that you can appreciate it, learn from it & then let it go.
When we reach reflexively for something to dull an ache inside of us, in that very moment of reaching, we are hiding from our pain. We're storing it away. Tamping it down.
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