wisdom

O Light divine! we need no fuller test That all is ordered well; We know enough to trust that all is best Where Love and Wisdom dwell.

A Native American Prayer. O' Great Spirit Whose voice I hear in the winds And whose breath gives life To all the world Hear me! I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom, Let me walk in beauty And make my eyes ever behold The red and purple sunset. Make my hands respect The things you have made And my ears sharp To hear your voice Make me wise So I may see ever so clearly The ways you have to teach me Let me learn The lessons you have hidden in every leaf and cloud I seek your strength, Not to be greater then my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy... Myself Make me always ready to come to you With clean hands And straight eyes So when life fades, as the fading sunset, My spirit may come to you Without shame.

Consideration is not merely a matter of emotional goodwill but of intellectual vigor and moral self sacrifice. Wisdom must combine with sympathy. That is why consideration underlies the phrase "a scholar and a gentleman," which really sums up the ideal of the output of a college education.

Most of the wisdom of one age, is the folly of the next.

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge. To know is not to be wise. Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it. There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool. But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all doing direct the other way-in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

What is essential to practice the Tao is to get rid of cravings and vexations. If these afflictions are not removed, it is impossible to attain stability. This is like the case of the fertile field, which cannot produce good crops as long as the weeds are not cleared away. Cravings and ruminations are the weeds of the mind; if you do not clear them away, concentration and wisdom do not develop.

God in his wisdom created these places And made them accessible to those of all races Rare visions of beauty, and fragrant perfume Distributed freely for all to consume. While Enjoying Nature, confessions and pardons Sincerely flow forth, as love grows in God's Gardens

Though through all his life a fool associates with a wise man, he yet understands not the Dharma, as the spoon, the flavor of soup.

In Scandinavian mythology, for example, the fountain of Mimir, source of hidden wisdom, lay under the roots of the great world tree and in Islamic culture fountains are found referred to in the Koran, in the garden called Paradise. In the Bible the passage: "It is done, I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely," reflects the importance that fountains symbolized to the writers.