Cleverness

For a camera

Quote: Cleverness is not wisdom.
Author: Euripides BC 480-406, Greek Tragic Poet

Quote: A cul-de-sac to which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
Author: John A. Lincoln

Quote: Cleverness is serviceable for everything, sufficient for nothing.
Author: Henri Frederic Amiel 1821-1881, Swiss Philosopher, Poet, Critic

"To be clever enough to get all the money, one must be stupid enough to want it."
Chesterton, Gilbert K. ·

"How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say."
Wilde, Oscar

"Patience and tenacity of purpose are worth more than twice their weight of cleverness."
Huxley, Thomas H.

"Ignorance of all things is an evil neither terrible nor excessive, nor yet the greatest of all; but great cleverness and much learning, if they be accompanied by a bad training, are a much greater misfortune."
Plato

"Civilization rests on a set of promises; if the promises are broken too often, the civilization dies, no matter how rich it may be, or how mechanically clever. Hope and faith depend on the promises; if hope and faith go, everything goes."
Agar, Herbert

"There are three methods to gaining wisdom. The first is reflection, which is the highest. The second is limitation, which is the easiest. The third is experience, which is the bitterest."
Confucius ·

This last is the one that I learned at the feet of Yogi Bhajan in '71-'73, which he insisted was not to be referred to as wisdom, but rather as knowledge.

Paraphrasing for brevity and clarity--"wisdom being derived from thinking; knowledge derived from understanding experience".

Lastly, there is this--the very definition of the populist leader's power:

"There are three kinds of despots. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the body. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul. There is the despot who tyrannizes over the soul and body alike. The first is called the Prince. The second is called the Pope. The third is called the People."
Wilde, Oscar

Now, I'm not as pessimistic as Wilde over the influence of the Pope in the early 21st century. I'm quite sure it was quite different 100 years ago in Ireland.

Pure democracy can easily become an enemy of freedom. People may easily vote their own doom.

There used to be a saying widely regarded as being axiomatic:

People vote their pocketbooks.

That meant that they were looking out for their wallets.

Now it means having their grasping hands out or having their hands over their wallets.

Are you wanting more from the government or more for yourself?

Who do you trust?