Tolstoy, after Rousseau, on Knowledge and Wisdom

“Real wisdom is not the knowledge of everything, but the knowledge of which things in life are necessary, which are less necessary, and which are completely unnecessary to know. Among the most necessary knowledge is the knowledge of how to live well, that is, how to produce the least possible evil and the greatest goodness in one’s life. At present, people study useless sciences, but forget to study this, the most important knowledge.”

Art and Science, A Perspective

"‘Tis the very difference between the artistic mind and the mathematical, that the former sees things as they are in a picture, some nearer and larger some smaller and farther away while to the mathematical mind everything, every inch in a million, every fact in a cosmos, must be of equal value. That is why mathematicians go mad, and poets scarcely ever do. A man may have as wide a view of life as he likes, the wider the better: a distant view, a birds-eye view, but still a view and not a map. The one thing he cannot attempt in his version of the universe is to draw things to scale." (G.K. Chesterton, 1874-1936)

Popular posts from this blog

“Men and women who saw God in the Bible: Why did they not all die?”

A Sonnet

Finished Reading: “An Essay Concerning the True Original Extent and End of Civil Government.”