Wisdom is probably the ability to cope. That's why someone who has to walk seven miles every day to get water for their children can be wiser than someone sitting behind a desk in Wall Street.
Interpretation
Wisdom stems from practical experiences and the ability to navigate life's challenges.
In this quote, Stephen Fry emphasizes that wisdom is not merely about intellectual knowledge or a prestigious job title, but rather about the ability to face and manage the hardships of daily life. He illustrates this by contrasting the daily struggle of a parent fetching water for their children with the relatively sheltered life of someone in a high-powered finance position, suggesting that true wisdom comes from resilience and enduring tough circumstances.
In practice
During a motivational speech about overcoming adversity.
I used many times to touch my own chest and feel, under its asthmatic quiver, the engine of the heart and lungs and blood and feel amazed at what I sensed was the enormity of the power I possessed. Not magical power, but real power. The power simply to go on, the power to endure, that is power enough, but I felt I had also the power to create, to add, to delight, to amaze and to transform.
To be human and to be adult means constantly to be in the grip of opposing emotions, to have daily to reconcile apparently conflicting tensions. I want this, but need that. I cherish this, but I adore its opposite too.
There comes a time when the blankness of the future is just so extreme, it's like such a black wall of nothingness. Not of bad things like a cave full of monsters and so, you're afraid of entering it. It's just nothingness, the void, emptiness and it is just horrible. It's like contemplating a future-less future and so you just want to step out of it. The monstrosity of being alive overwhelms you.
As someone who worked hard for a Labour victory in the 90s, do I regret it? Not really. It was bound to happen. And it'll happen with the next government, and the one after it. Because all governments serve us. They serve the filth.
It's now very common to hear people say 'I'm rather offended by that'.
You can't just say there is a God because well, the world is beautiful. You have to account for bone cancer in children. You have to account for the fact that almost all animals in the wild live under stress with not enough to eat and will die violent and bloody deaths. There is not any way that you can just choose the nice bits and say that means there is a God and ignore the true fact of what nature is.
Forget yourself by becoming interested in others. Do every day a good deed that will put a smile of joy on someone's face.
I teach people that no matter what the situation is, no matter how chaotic, no matter how much drama is around you, you can heal by your presence if you just stay within your center.
The avarice person is ever in want; let your desired aim have a fixed limit.
The pessimist borrows trouble; the optimists lend encouragement.
We're our own dragons as well as our own heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves.
I think I'm in the same mood as ever, but in some ways more mature. I guess you could say that, at 65, when you've seen the world shape up as I have, there are only two things you can do: laugh or kill yourself.
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