Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
John SteinbeckRead
This is beyond understanding." said the king. "You are the wisest man alive. You know what is preparing. Why do you not make a plan to save yourself?" And Merlin said quietly, "Because I am wise. In the combat between wisdom and feeling, wisdom never wins.
Interpretation
Wisdom often conflicts with emotional instincts, leading to difficult choices.
This quote highlights the struggle between rational thought and emotional responses. Merlin recognizes that, while he possesses great wisdom, it often does not lead to practical actions when feelings and unforeseen circumstances come into play. This suggests that true wisdom involves understanding the limitations of reason in the face of human experience and emotion.
In practice
In a discussion about making tough life decisions, one might quote this to emphasize the conflict between emotional instincts and rational thinking.
Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.
At one point, as Samuel urges Adam to raise his boys well regardless of the blood that might be in them, Adam tells him, "You can't make a race horse of a pig." Samuel replies, "No, but you can make a very fast pig.
And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.
The comfortable people in tight houses felt pity at first, and then distaste, and finally hatred for the migrant people.
People do not want advice - they want corroboration.
It is one of the triumphs of the human that he can know a thing and still not believe it.
Of all our possessions, wisdom alone is immortal.
Discipline, it has been suggested, is the means of human spiritual evolution. What provides the motive, the energy for discipline? This force I believe to be love. I define love thus: The will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth.
The greatest knowledge we can ever have is knowing God treasures us.
Reason has seldom failed us because it has seldom been tried.
I am, as I've said, merely competent. But in an age of incompetence, that makes me extraordinary.
The most important quality for an investor is temperament, not intellect. You need a temperament that neither derives great pleasure from being with the crowd or against the crowd.
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