I never cease being dumbfounded by the unbelievable things people believe.
Leo RostenRead
Proverbs often contradict one another, as any reader soon discovers. The sagacity that advises us to look before we leap promptly warns us that if we hesitate we are lost; that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the contradictory nature of wisdom found in proverbs, showcasing the complexity of decision-making.
Leo Rosten's quote reflects on the inherent contradictions present in proverbs and wisdom, indicating that while one piece of advice may encourage caution and reflection, another may promote immediacy and action. This illustrates the nuanced nature of human decision-making, where the best course of action often depends on specific circumstances, leading to confusion and the need for discernment.
Themes
ProverbsWisdomDecision-MakingContradictionsHuman Nature
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion about conflicting advice in a self-help seminar.
More from Leo Rosten
All quotes →I came to believe it not true that "the coward dies a thousand deaths, the brave man only one." I think it is the other way around: It is the brave who die a thousand deaths. For it is imagination, and not just conscience, which doth make cowards of us all. Those who do not know fear are not truly brave.
Leo RostenRead
The fellow who laughs last may laugh best, but he gets the reputation of being very slow-witted.
Leo RostenRead
Words sing. They hurt. They teach. They sanctify. They were man's first, immeasurable feat of magic. They liberated us from ignorance and our barbarous past.
Leo RostenRead
The purpose of life is to matter, to be productive, to have it make a difference that you lived at all-using the talents that God has given you for the betterment of others.
Leo RostenRead
Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo RostenRead
Similar quotes
That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in another.
Adlai E. StevensonRead
Only liars manage to always be out during bad times and in during good times.
Bernard BaruchRead
If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything, never become anything, and in the end, because we have said everything before we had anything to say, we shall be left speechless at the moment of our greatest decision.
Thomas MertonRead
Paradise is hidden in each one of use, it is concealed within me too, right now, and if I wish, it will come for me in reality, tomorrow even, and for the rest of my life.
Fyodor DostoevskyRead
Enthusiasm is the leaping lightning, not to be measured by the horse-power of the understanding
Ralph Waldo EmersonRead
I made one great mistake in my life-when I signed the letter to President Roosevelt recommending that atom bombs be made but there was some justification-the danger that the Germans would make them.
Albert EinsteinRead